OT: Short fiction needed for HS science class

[Kat Nagel <katnagel -at- eznet -dot- net>]

My husband is teaching a class this year called "How D'Ya Know?", a 
look at all the ways people use to determine truth.  It's officially 
a science course, but---like most other courses at that school---will 
look at things from multiple points of view.  At the moment, his 
lesson plans include units on philosophy, religion (various flavors), 
journalism, and several pseudo-sciences (astrology, alchemy) as well 
as medical and scientific fraud.

The kids also get English credit for the course.  They read short 
stories, novels, poetry, newspaper and magazine articles and see 
films that treat the subject matter.  They discuss the literature and 
do lots of writing.

Andy's starting the class with a discussion of superstition, and 
needs a short (8-10 pg) fiction reading assignment for the kids. 
He'd like something where someone is converted from superstition 
(false unsupported belief) to truth (belief supported by observation 
and deduction) by some other belief system like science or an 
established religion.  Alternatively, he could use a story where a 
scientific theory is initially treated as a superstition.

We've found lots of fantasy stories where a maligned superstition 
turns out to be true, but none of the ones we've read use any kind of 
deductive or inductive reasoning to prove 'truth'.  They just depend 
on a character *saying* it's true.  That isn't what Andy wants to get 
across.

I thought he could use one of Randall Garret's Lord Darcy stories, 
but they depend too much on the reader's familiarity with 12th-18th 
century european history and language patterns.  Most of these 
inner-city 14-year-olds would be lost in that stuff and not get to 
the central idea of superstition vs evidence.

Any ideas?
/K@
"We are more easily persuaded, in general, by the
 reasons we ourselves discover than by those which
 are given to us by others."     -- Blaise Pascal

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