Abstract
Contrasting two examples from 2005, a creationism-trial and a recent textbook, the article shows two different ways of employing social considerations to demarcate science from non-science. Drawing conclusions from the comparison, and citing some of the leading proponents of science studies, the paper argues for a novel perspective in teaching nature of science (NOS) issues, one that grows out of sociological and anthropological considerations of (scientific) expertise. In contrast to currently dominant epistemic approaches to teach NOS, this view makes it possible to incorporate epistemic and social norms in a unified framework that can alleviate presently problematic aspects of NOS modules, and can help students appreciate science as a privileged form of knowledge-production without becoming scientistic. A pilot module to carry out the above is presented and assessed, showing that a broad sociological starting point is closer to the lifeworld of students, and that traditional epistemic considerations need not be compromised.
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Notes
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. 2005 WL 578974 (MD Pa. 2005). For the memorandum opinion see: http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf.
McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255 (E.D. Ark. 1982).
While I only analyse Laudan’s response, other critics included Richard Burian, Phil Quinn, and Ernan McMullin, the latter reportedly stating during the trial that “Ruse is setting our case back twenty years” (Hull 2001, p. 429). These views were seen outdated by many already a quarter century ago.
Similar issues have been raised in the debate over Steve Fuller’s expert testimony in the KD case. See for example the debate on his testimony on the HOPOS list server: http://www.listserv.nd.edu/archives/hopos-l.html, which was the major focus of the November 2005 discussions.
Obviously arguments that can be considered epistemological or even ontological have not been dropped completely. Thus the unscientific notion of supernatural causation and other religious aspects of the movement were highlighted, like Behe’s statement that “the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God” (KD, p. 28). But these were mostly used to argue that ID is religion, and less to support the claim that ID is not science.
Here Behe utilises what Popper himself has said about Darwinian evolution, i.e. that it is a “metaphysical research program” rather than a scientific theory (Popper 1988, p. 147). This nicely illustrates how decontextualised demarcation criteria become rhetorical resources.
In recent decades attention turned from proclaiming what the true demarcation criteria are (or should be) to investigating how they become (in a certain period and for a specific audience) criteria that are seen as separating good from bad science. Studies have shown the enormous flexibility of these boundaries and of the use of resources. For examples see Gieryn (1999), Mellor (2003), Taylor (1996), Wallis (1979). Importantly, while I argue that “sufficient and necessary conditions” for something to qualify as science cannot be found using epistemic criteria, I do not claim that such expectations can be met using purely social criteria. Given enough time and effort, mimicking most of these desiderata seems also possible. Also, on a closer look, sociological approaches for demarcation face similar problems as epistemic ones (McClenon 1985). Any attempt to define terms like “science”, “religion”, or even “chair”, will either include items generally thought to be excluded or (and) the other way around. Instances of what we call science stand in relations of—pace Wittgenstein—“family resemblance”. What I argue for is that a broad set of criteria needs to be employed, and these should include social ones.
Needless to say, the recent interest in creationism also resulted in novel approaches to epistemological problems or even in novel philosophical insights: Elliott Sober has given an exemplary approach to such questions in Sober (2000), or in his recent contribution to Dembski and Ruse (2004), and this attitude is applauded in Lewens (2006).
Importantly, however, many of the ‘old-fashioned’ epistemic criteria are independent of empirical success, so if the differentia specifica for science is empirical success (differentiating it from e.g. pseudoscience), the use of these criteria becomes problematic. As a result, when analysing theory-choice, authors like Solomon group simplicity etc. among the non-empirical decision-vectors (Solomon 2001).
That this ruling is of interest for science education has clearly been recognized e.g. in Bottaro et al. (2006), but that article only investigates the special place immunology played in the trial, and not the social criteria to demarcate science. Also, as there are many arguments not to teach creationism at all and few in support of it (Pennock 2002), In line with the majority of educators, I will not consider the case where creationism is to be taught as science.
The IBO was founded in 1968, and has around 1,600 schools (August 2005) in 121 countries (more than 1,300 teach the Diploma Programme to approximately 200,000 students).
The division of science into normal and revolutionary is fairly correctly described, but a figure (8–10 on van de Lagemaat 2005, p. 241) is used to show “reality according to Kuhn”, with time on the X and progress on the Y axis, where the smooth slope of progress during normal science is interrupted with vertical lines (no time, huge progress) standing for revolutions. This is certainly not what Kuhn believed, as it is exactly between paradigm-shifts that progress is an empty concept.
Here and in the following I will use the term “sociological” in a rather loose sense. The reason is that the rather limited form in which these insights can appear in the classroom does not necessitate the strict separation of the very different streams in sociology. But it will be quite evident from the context which movements are implied in the discussion. Another reason why the traditions are not separated is to avoid “gut-feelings” and the general attitude that approves of structural functionalist or Mertonian sociology and automatically rejects e.g. SSK approaches (Solbes and Traver 2003).
Of course an obvious counterexample is Steve Fuller’s testimony in the Kitzmiller–Dover case, as witness to the creationist side. But there are several reasons for not dealing extensively with this in detail: (1) most of the HPS and STS community did not approve of Fuller’s decision (Cole 2006, p. 857; Edmond and Mercer 2006, pp. 849–851; Lambert 2006, pp. 839–840; Lynch 2006, pp. 823–824); (2) Fuller’s main aim was not to legitimate creationism, but to legitimize (his view of) science studies; (3) Fuller himself states that “I decided to participate simply after having read the expert witness reports as filed by the plaintiffs’ lawyers. These struck me as based on tendentious understandings of the nature of science that would not have survived scrutiny on an informed listserv such as HOPOS-L, let alone the peer review process of a relevant journal. My critical eye was clearly informed by knowledge gained from the science studies disciplines, since I am not a known advocate of - or expert in - either IDT [Intelligent Design Theory] or Neo-Darwinism” (Fuller 2006, p. 827).
For a critique see Jasanoff (2002). Her critique, however, does not rule out using the approach in science education. Even if simplified (Jasanoff’s critique rightly points to this weakness), the model is one of the few approaches that take into account political factors and the role they play in decision-making, yet appreciate scientific consensus-building as an epistemically different activity.
One major problem is that many of the epistemic criteria used as argumentative tools in debates on what is good science are not empirical. Though a detailed analysis can show the weakness of ID claims, these debates are much more sophisticated than the general understanding of science among high school students. So while such an analysis clearly can be done—for the issues of observational consequences, testability and supporting evidence in favour of ID see Sober (2007)—, for the classroom use the inclusion of the social aspects seems more viable.
Examples include referees’ comments, and a response to the earlier article (Zemplén 2007a) by Nicholas Alchin, stressing that the historical development of NOS ideas should be used to determine the sequence of the views taught (See http://www.springerlink.metapress.com/content/311231425022664n/?p=87c7d0cd9e934a60a151abe9481dd199&pi=0, Alchin, Nicholas, Zemplén on Theory of Knowledge, Science and Education, online first).
While there have been some improvements due to innovative educational methods, like Nott and Wellington (1998), probably many of the disconcerting findings (e.g. that even a number of the assessment instruments to assess teachers’ knowledge about NOS are poorly constructed) discussed in works like Lederman et al. (1998) still hold true in many countries. There is even less work on and attention devoted to what students should know about NOS, and how one should measure that.
The game described here was the opening class of a pilot module for NOS, the details of which are available in Zemplén (2007b), and which is summarised in Sect. 6.
One might call this type of selection ’vicarious selection’, as Allchin (1999) does about the scientific community, but it is a selector. Today one of the gravest problems in the public appreciation of scientific issues is that certain organizations pretend to claim scientific expertise where they are only spreading ideologically motivated messages. Creationism is one group, but similar (and even more successful for distorting public opinion in the US), politically motivated groups deny climate change, etc. The point that choice is made based on trust in institutions is underlined by the fact that in these cases the most efficient way to combat pseudoscientific claims is to disclose the funding structure, manipulative techniques, life-histories of organizations, as in the case of the Marshall Institute in denying climate change (Oreskes 2007). A highly interesting issue—not discussed in detail here—is that a justifiable and strong critique is in fact an ad hominem type of argument, generally considered to be fallacious.
From a more traditional epistemological position, similar conclusions have been found in Smith and Siegel (2004), see 4.2 on p. 576.
The exercise was also used to rehearse concepts that the students had met earlier in a module on reasoning and argumentation (for both classes, this was the first module of their TOK course). This took up some time, but as following lessons of the module built on logical fallacies, this excursion seemed necessary. Students were reminded of the notion of strategic manoeuvring and the balancing of rhetorical and dialectical aims of an argumentation. The arguments were analysed both as to how “strong” they were (i.e. were there any fallacies, can the arguments be used to make reasoned choices, etc.) and also as to how “effective” they were (the rhetorical aspects of persuasiveness, the questions of target-group and audience were discussed).
Originally from Weller (1985), see also http://www.besse.at/sms/smsintro.html.
Rather simplistic differences between pseudoscientists (mimicking the norms of real science) and fringe scientists (striving to conform to the norms of science) were proposed. This is in line with recent interest in the pseudoscientist as opposed to pseudoscience (Derksen 1993). In addition the problems of the approach were also hinted at.
These were consciously not separated. Both classes had to read an excerpt from Rudner’s famous article (Rudner 1953), and one class had to comment on the last sentence: “How sure we need to be before we accept a hypothesis will depend on how serious a mistake would be”, reprinted in McErlean (2000). This was to underline that even for the purely epistemic considerations one should not disregard the social.
As students progress in their studies their position is constantly changing, and this change needs to be addressed and explicated, especially in courses that focus on the gradual development of reflective thinking and responsible citizenship.
These discussions allowed students to bring up and debate issues in a classroom or group setting where improving critical thinking skills was admittedly one of the main aims of the course. One very positive finding was that identifying the weaknesses and strengths of positions (as opposed to a “black or white” view of issues) also strengthened students’ willingness to practice these skills in a number of other areas. This is not a trivially achievable aim, as the famous Delphi report on critical thinking states: “RECOMMENDATION 4: Modeling that critical spirit, awakening and nurturing those attitudes in students, exciting those inclinations and attempting to determine objectively if they have become genuinely integrated with the high quality execution of CT skills are, for the majority of panelists, important instructional goals and legitimate targets for educational assessment. However, the experts harbor no illusions about the ease of designing appropriate instructional programs or assessment tools” (Facione 1990).
As I have argued in Zemplén (2007a), for the specific IBO course in Theory of Knowledge (still a course much ahead of many other attempts) curricular development is aimed more at refining the system of grading, operationalising assessment, and not on evaluating what the course actually does—the curriculum gets “black-boxed”, and little effort is made to investigate what it is that students actually achieve by attending the course.
In the area of critical thinking (in a number of respects connected to understanding and appreciating NOS issues and science education—see e.g. Bailin (2002)), where expert-discussions are more visible, these problems are well recognized: while critical-thinking exams obviously measure some skills, these skills are not obviously the ones that the test aims to measure (Fawkes et al. 2005). Also, although most of the reasoning skills taught can reach the strongest students, for a more varied student population their efficacy is questionable (Voss et al. 1991)—similar problems surface in NOS education.
Experts in the Delphi report found good critical thinking to include “both a skill dimension and a dispositional dimension. The experts find CT to include cognitive skills in (1) interpretation, (2) analysis, (3) evaluation, (4) inference, (5) explanation and (6) self-regulation” (Facione 1990). Many of these skills develop well into adulthood, and even adults show weaknesses in certain areas, as specific patters of non-correct, “fallacious” reasoning are common, whether directed by “hot” or “cold” biases (Griffin et al. 2002; Holyoak and Morrison 2005; Kahneman et al. 1982; Kahneman and Tversky 2000).
There was one student in the 2006 class but none in the 2007 class who at this point had difficulties, and who received extra homework. By the coming week the student was confident enough to share her examples with the whole class, and this was used as a warm-up repetition for the class.
For a very similar position see Allchin (2003). It is important to note how a number of philosophers have made attempts to incorporate the social in accounting for knowledge-production. For examples see the works of Philip Kitcher, Helen Longino, John Stuart Mill, Miriam Solomon, etc.
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Acknowledgements
I received helpful comments and ideas from Anna Csíky, Tihamér Margitay, David W. Rudge, Nick Alchin, Márton Sóskuthy, and the four anonymous referees commenting on the first draft. The study is based on work in the Karinthy Frigyes Dual Language High School, Budapest, Hungary. The research was supported by the Max Planck Institute for History of Science in Berlin, the OTKA T 037575 and NKFP6 00107/2005 grant, and a Békésy postdoctoral fellowship. I’d like to thank Douglas Allchin, Peter Heering, Art Stinner, and Michael Matthews for encouraging my work. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the 6th International Conference for the History of Science in Science Education, Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg, July, 10–15th, 2006, and a detailed discussion of a pilot module appeared in Zemplén (2007b).
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Zemplén, G.Á. Putting Sociology First—Reconsidering the Role of the Social in ‘Nature of Science’ Education. Sci & Educ 18, 525–559 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9125-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9125-3