Teaching the Philosophical and Worldview Components of Science

A common feature of contemporary science education curricula is the expectation that as well as learning science content, students will learn something about science—its nature, its history, how it differs from non-scientific endeavours, and its interactions with culture and society. These curricular pronouncements provide an ‘open cheque’ for the inclusion of history and philosophy of science in science teacher education programmes, and for their utilisation in classrooms. Unfortunately this open cheque is too often not cashed. This paper will discuss an important aspect of the contribution of science to culture, namely its role in the development of worldviews in society. A case study of the adjustments to a central Roman Catholic doctrine occasioned by the metaphysics of Atomism which was embraced at the Scientific Revolution will be presented. Options for the reconciliation of seemingly conflicting scientific and religious worldviews are laid out, and it is claimed that as far as liberal education is concerned, the important thing is to have students first recognise what are the options, and then carefully examine them to come to their own conclusions about reconciliation or otherwise.     

Science, Worldviews and Education: An Introduction

This special issue of Science & Education deals with the theme of ‘Science, Worldviews and Education’. The theme is of particular importance at the present time as many national and provincial education authorities are requiring that students learn about the Nature of Science (NOS) as well as learning science content knowledge and process skills. NOS topics are being written into national and provincial curricula. Such NOS matters give rise to questions about science and worldviews: What is a worldview? Does science have a worldview? Are there specific ontological, epistemological and ethical prerequisites for the conduct of science? Does science lack a worldview but nevertheless have implications for worldviews? How can scientific worldviews be reconciled with seemingly discordant religious and cultural worldviews? In addition to this major curricular impetus for refining understanding of science and worldviews, there are also pressing cultural and social forces that give prominence to questions about science, worldviews and education. There is something of an avalanche of popular literature on the subject that teachers and students are variously engaged by. Additionally the modernisation and science-based industrialisation of huge non-Western populations whose traditional religions and beliefs are different from those that have been associated with orthodox science, make very pressing the questions of whether, and how, science is committed to particular worldviews. Hugh Gauch Jr. provides a long and extensive lead essay in the volume, and 12 philosophers, educators, scientists and theologians having read his paper, then engage with the theme. Hopefully the special issue will contribute to a more informed understanding of the relationship between science, worldviews and education, and provide assistance to teachers who are routinely engaged with the subject.     

Ways to prepare future teachers to teach science in multicultural classrooms

Roussel De Carvalho uses the notion of superdiversity to draw attention to some of the pedagogical implications of teaching science in multicultural schools in cosmopolitan cities such as London. De Carvalho makes the case that if superdiverse classrooms exist then Science Initial Teacher Education has a role to play in helping future science teachers to become more knowledgeable and reflective about how to teach school students with a range of worldviews and religious beliefs. The aim of this paper is to take that proposition a step further by considering what the aims and content of a session in teacher education might be. The focus is on helping future teachers develop strategies to teach school students to think critically about the nature of science and what it means to have a scientific worldview. The paper draws on data gathered during an interview study with 28 students at five secondary schools in England. The data was analysed to discover students’ perceptions of science and their perceptions of the way that science responds to big questions about being human. The findings are used to inform a set of three strategies that teachers could use to help young people progress in their understanding of the nature of science. These strategies together with the conceptual framework that underpins them are used to develop a perspective on what kinds of pedagogical content knowledge teacher education might usefully provide.     

Whose Science and Whose Religion? Reflections on the Relations between Scientific and Religious Worldviews

Arguments about the relationship between science and religion often proceed by identifying a set of essential characteristics of scientific and religious worldviews and arguing on the basis of these characteristics for claims about a relationship of conflict or compatibility between them. Such a strategy is doomed to failure because science, to some extent, and religion, to a much larger extent, are cultural phenomena that are too diverse in their expressions to be characterized in terms of a unified worldview. In this paper I follow a different strategy. Having offered a loose characterization of the nature of science, I pose five questions about specific areas where religious and scientific worldviews may conflict—questions about the nature of faith, the belief in a God or Gods, the authority of sacred texts, the relationship between scientific and religious conceptions of the mind/soul, and the relationship between scientific and religious understandings of moral behavior. My review of these questions will show that they cannot be answered unequivocally because there is no agreement amongst religious believers as to the meaning of important religious concepts. Thus, whether scientific and religious worldviews conflict depends essentially upon whose science and whose religion one is considering. In closing, I consider the implications of this conundrum for science education.     

The Interplay of Scientific Activity, Worldviews and Value Outlooks

Scientific activity tends to reflect particular worldviews and their associated value outlooks; and scientific results sometimes have implications for worldviews and the presuppositions of value outlooks. Even so, scientific activity per se neither presupposes nor provides sound rational grounds to accept any worldview or value outlook. Moreover, in virtue of reflecting a suitable variety of worldviews and value outlooks, perhaps including some religious ones, science is better able to further its aim. An extended argument is made that, although the materialist worldview has de facto been widely associated with the development of modern science, the scope of scientific inquiry is improperly limited when constraints, derived from materialism, are generally placed upon admissible scientific theories. Some implications for science education are sketched in the conclusion.     

Teaching Darwinian Evolution: Learning from Religious Education

This article examines what science education might be able to learn from phenomenological religious education’s attempts to teach classes where students hold a plurality of religious beliefs. Recent statements as to how best to accomplish the central pedagogical concept of ‘learning from religion’ as a vehicle for human transformation are explored, and then used to appraise the historical research into how Charles Darwin’s responses to religious ideas influenced and were influenced by his scientific work. The issues identified as crucial for science educators to be aware of when teaching students Darwinian evolution are then outlined and, finally, suggestions are made to enable individual students to examine how their personal religious beliefs might interact with their growing understanding of Darwin’s evolutionary approach.     

Can Science Test Supernatural Worldviews?

Several prominent scientists, philosophers, and scientific institutions have argued that science cannot test supernatural worldviews on the grounds that (1) science presupposes a naturalistic worldview (Naturalism) or that (2) claims involving supernatural phenomena are inherently beyond the scope of scientific investigation. The present paper argues that these assumptions are questionable and that indeed science can test supernatural claims. While scientific evidence may ultimately support a naturalistic worldview, science does not presuppose Naturalism as an a priori commitment, and supernatural claims are amenable to scientific evaluation. This conclusion challenges the rationale behind a recent judicial ruling in the United States concerning the teaching of “Intelligent Design” in public schools as an alternative to evolution and the official statements of two major scientific institutions that exert a substantial influence on science educational policies in the United States. Given that science does have implications concerning the probable truth of supernatural worldviews, claims should not be excluded a priori from science education simply because they might be characterized as supernatural, paranormal, or religious. Rather, claims should be excluded from science education when the evidence does not support them, regardless of whether they are designated as ‘natural’ or ‘supernatural’.     

Thinking multicultural education ‘otherwise’ – from a secularist construction towards a plurality of epistemologies and worldviews

This article examines educational, political and philosophical perspectives on the concepts of worldview and religion in the context of multicultural education. Using a postcolonial and post-structural approach combined with theories that analyse the politics of secularism, we attempt to pinpoint key perspectives in the recognition of worldviews in the current discourse on liberal multiculturalism. We suggest that the liberal-secular foundation of multicultural education is blind to practices, which, while supposedly based on political neutrality, are discriminating and ‘Othering’ towards religions and non-Western worldviews. Through theoretical and contextual analysis, we aim to deconstruct the ‘Otherness’ of religious worldviews at the epistemic level.     

Responses and Clarifications Regarding Science and Worldviews

This article responds to the other 10 papers in this thematic issue on science and worldviews and it clarifies some of the points in my lead article. The Bayesian framework provides helpful structure for worldview inquiries by recognizing and integrating both public and personal evidence. Drawing upon the other 10 papers, six kinds of potential evidence or considerations are identified: the problem of evil, evolution, miracles and prayer, the Anthropic Principle, religious experience, and natural theology. The thesis is defended that considerations informing worldview convictions include public evidence from the sciences and the humanities and personal evidence from individual experience. Additional topics addressed briefly include scientific realism, the tentativeness of scientific knowledge, science’s presuppositions, the relationship between natural science and natural theology, the nature of religious faith, and the importance of philosophy in science education. Seven questions are posed for which further leadership from the AAAS and NAS would benefit the scientific community.     

Ideas about earthquakes after experiencing a natural disaster in Taiwan: An analysis of students' worldviews

On September 21st, 1999, the central part of Taiwan suffered an earthquake which was 7.3 on the Richter scale. This disaster provided a unique and rare opportunity to study students' worldviews. Science educators have proposed that students' worldviews influence their ways of interpreting natural phenomena and then impose an effect on conceptual development in science. The objective of this study was to explore students' worldviews as revealed by their ideas about the causality of earthquakes after experiencing the natural disaster. In Taiwan's socio-cultural milieu, there are some indigenous world-views about earthquakes including the perspectives of supernatural forces and myths. Through tracking the ideas of 60 fifth graders and sixth graders for eight months, this study showed that students tended to employ the following three major approaches to resolve the incongruence between indigenous worldviews and scientific worldviews. First, they may try to accept the scientific ideas and to abandon their original worldviews. Second, they may try to grasp the scientific views and at the same time try to keep the indigenous worldviews unchanged. Many students held a scientific/myths dual perspective about the causes of earthquakes. Finally, they may retain their original worldview and try to ignore the scientific worldview. This paper finally suggests that science educators need to integrate socio-cultural aspects of science and of learning science into science education research and practice.     

Science and religion on the blackboard: exploring schoolmasters’ beliefs and practices in Senegal

This article treats the various forms of adjustment between scientific and religious discourses at school. It aims to analyse the beliefs and practices of schoolmasters and to explore how the oppositions between the ‘dominant’ discourses of Western science and those of religion are addressed in secondary education in Senegal. The analysis leans on the Actor-Network-Theory and the concept of ‘apparatus’ from Foucault. The article shows that, in the secular Republic of Senegal, contradictory messages on some sensitive issues are conveyed to pupils, in the classroom, by the official schoolmaster himself. The schoolmasters, whatever their religion, teach for religion in public schools (in a devotional sense); they do not teach about religion (in an academic sense). An ‘enrolment’ work is in progress in the official schools whereby pupils adhere to the ‘true’ religious discourse, challenged by the ‘true’ scientific discourse. The schoolmasters do not want to exclude the official curriculum but wish to teach religious knowledge. The State cannot limit each discourse to its own sphere of relevance and fails to impose its criteria on some actors who prefer those offered by their own religious networks. A Senegalese ‘national religious apparatus’ produces effects on schoolmasters’ educational practices and curriculum.     

Plural public schooling: religion,worldviews and moral education

Educators seek to nurture in the hearts and minds of students a sense of moral thinking, action and behaviour. What these constitute is dependent on one’s perspective, or worldview. Moral thinking and action emerge from worldviews or visions of life—religious or secular. In the history of common or public schools educators have linked moral education to traditional religion, severed those ties in favour of secular perspectives, and of late have shifted focus to educating for citizenship. In each case concern regarding whose values, morals and perspectives dominate surfaces. In a society with plural perspectives, no one worldview should dominate public schools that should be ‘open to all’. A plural public school grounds moral decision‐making in worldviews, and encourages students to increase their understanding of worldviews in general, while deepening their own in particular. Hence, perspectives that ground moral convictions come to attain particular importance and significance, and it behooves us to explore rather than ignore them.     

Learning from religions as ‘skilful means’: a contribution to the debate about the identity of religious education

This article is a revised version of the author’s contribution to the 2006 meeting of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values in Driebergen, the Netherlands and is concerned with the need for continuing discussion about the identity of religious education. The article begins by arguing that, despite current criticisms, Smart’s original intentions for phenomenological religious education were far from inappropriate for a critical religious education. It then attempts to introduce some fresh ideas about how we might understand the commonly used terms of learning about and from religion. It suggests that in learning about religion it is important to engage students with the soteriological dimensions of religious traditions. The article then goes on to offer a revised version of learning from religion based on the Mahayana Buddhist concept of upaya or ‘skilful means’.     

Scientific and Religious Perspectives on Evolution in the Curriculum: an Approach Based on Pedagogy of Difference

There is a long history of some students finding that the science instruction they receive in schools fails to address their deeply held concerns about the theory of evolution. Such concerns are principally religious, though there are also students with deeply held religious views who are perfectly comfortable with the theory of evolution. New instructional strategies are emerging, aimed at reducing the tensions that may exist between evolution and religion by making space for students to examine their own views and recognize the spectrum of views that exists between atheistic evolution and special creation, as well as the bounded nature of science and different ways of knowing. In this article, we discuss the teaching of evolution in societies where acceptance of the theory of evolution is far from universal, and argue that an approach based on pedagogy of difference has considerable potential to enhance students’ development of epistemic insight through recognition of the multiple perspectives that exist concerning the relationship between religion and science. In doing so, we explicate precisely what pedagogy of difference entails and introduce an approach that should enhance evolution education, and even aid students’ situating of science as a resource for making decisions about issues with scientific and societal aspects where the acknowledgement of multiple perspectives is valuable.     

Beyond Evolution: Addressing Broad Interactions Between Science and Religion in Science Teacher Education

Science and religion are two indisputably profound and durable cultural forces with a complex history of interaction. As ASTE members are aware, these interactions often manifest themselves in classrooms and in the surrounding communities. In this essay, we encourage science teacher educators to broaden their perspectives of science–religion interactions so that they may better assist pre- and in-service science teachers with addressing topics such as the age and origins of the universe and biological evolution in an appropriate manner. We first introduce some foundational scholarship into the historical interactions between science and religion as well as current efforts to maintain healthy dialogue between perspectives that are frequently characterized as innately in conflict with or mutually exclusive of one another. Given that biological evolution is the dominant science–religion issue of our day, in particular in the USA, we next summarize the origins and strategies of anti-evolution movements via the rise and persistence of Christian Fundamentalism. We then summarize survey and qualitative sociological research indicating disparities between academic scientists and the general public with regard to religious beliefs to help us further understand our students’ worldviews and the challenges they often face in campus-to-classroom transitions. We conclude the essay by providing resources and practical suggestions, including legal considerations, to assist science teacher educators with their curriculum and outreach.     

Secondary School Students’ Epistemic Insight into the Relationships Between Science and Religion—A Preliminary Enquiry

A number of previous studies have shown that there is a widespread view among young people that science and religion are opposed. In this paper, we suggest that it requires a significant level of what can be termed “epistemic insight” to access the idea that some people see science and religion as compatible while others do not. To explore this further, we draw on previous work to devise a methodology to discover students’ thinking about apparent contradictions between scientific and religious explanations of the origins of the universe. In our discussion of the findings, we highlight that students’ epistemic insight in this context does seem in many cases to be limited and we outline some of the issues emerging from the study that seem to boost or limit students’ progress in this area.     

Ecumenical Worldview Development by Gender, Race, and Worldview: A Multiple-Group Analysis of Model Invariance

Based upon a national longitudinal dataset of 14,527 college students generated by the UCLA Spirituality in Higher Education Project, this study used structural equation modeling to test the applicability of a model of ecumenical worldview development for students of diverse genders, races, and worldviews. The model suggests that challenging co-curricular experiences and the salience of religion and spirituality in academic encounters tend to provoke religious/spiritual struggles, which in turn enhance ecumenical worldview. However, tests for model invariance revealed group differences in the applicability of the model. Differences by gender and race/ethnicity are minimal in comparison to differences by worldview.     

Darwin and Religion: Correcting the Caricatures

Much has been written on the subject of Darwinism and religion, but rather less on the development of Darwin’s own thinking on religious matters and how it changed over time. What were his religious, or anti-religious, beliefs? Did he believe that his theory of evolution by natural selection was incompatible with belief in a Creator? Was it his revolutionary science that turned him into an agnostic? If not, what other considerations affected his judgment? The aim of this paper is to illuminate these questions and, in so doing, to correct some popular caricatures that frequently appear when the two words ‘science’ and ‘religion’ are juxtaposed. Darwin himself reflected deeply on the theological problem of suffering and justified his naturalism on the ground that it made the deity less directly responsible for the more repulsive features of creation. The deism that he espoused at the time of writing his Origin of Species also left its mark in his conviction that it would be demeaning to the deity to suggest that its purposes could not be achieved through natural causes. The diversity of the religious responses also corrects a common misperception that there was almost unanimous hostility from religious interests.     

Worldviews and their relation to science

Worldviews are not only about whether God exists or whether the world has a purpose. They can contain a lot more, or they can differ in excluding the existence of God and/or a purpose for the world. In this article we define worldviews as answering a variety of worldview questions, which we list. Once this is recognized, it becomes clear that scientific worldviews are also a species of worldviews that should not be dismissed categorically. We then distinguish between the project of constructing a scientific worldview and asking whether science itself has any worldview content. We argue that science, even when it is characterized quite minimally, does have worldview content. This has some important implications for science education, which we draw.