Mario Bunge: Physicist and Philosopher

Mario Bunge was born in Argentina in the final year of the First World War.He learnt atomic physics and quantum mechanics from an Austrian refugeewho had been a student of Heisenberg. Additionally he taught himself modernphilosophy in an environment that was a philosophical backwater. He was thefirst South American philosopher of science to be trained in science. Hispublications in physics, philosophy, psychology, sociology and the foundationsof biology, are staggering in number, and include a massive 8-volume Treatiseon Philosophy. The unifying thread of his scholarship is the constant and vigorousadvancement of the Enlightenment Project, and criticism of cultural and academicmovements that deny or devalue the core planks of the project: namely its naturalism,the search for truth, the universality of science, rationality, and respect for individuals.At a time when specialisation is widely decried, and its deleterious effects on science,philosophy of science, educational research and science teaching are recognised – it is salutary to see the fruits of one person's pursuit of the Big' scientific and philosophical picture.     

Problems with Piagetian Constructivism

Evidence that demonstrates the inadequacy of Piagetian constructivist theory to explain the complexities of children's early learning is discussed. An alternative, nativist theory of cognition is outlined and implications for science education briefly considered.     

Editorial

Science &; Education -     

Methodology and Politics in Science: The Fate of Huygens' 1673 Proposal of the Seconds Pendulum as an International Standard of Length and Some Educational Suggestions

This paper is part of a larger work on the history, philosophy and utilisation of pendulum motion studies (Matthews 2000). The paper deals with the fate of Christiaan Huygens 1673 proposal to use the length of a seconds pendulum (effectively one metre) as a universal, natural and objective standard of length. This is something which, if it had been adopted, would have been of inestimable scientific, commercial and cultural benefit. Why it was not originally adopted in the late seventeenth century, and why it was again rejected in the late eighteenth century (1795) when the Revolutionary Assembly in France adopted the metric system with the metre being defined as one ten-millionth of the quarter meridan distance – raise interesting questions about the methodology and politics of science. Given that pendulum motion is a standard component of all science courses throughout the world, and given that most science education reforms, including the US National Science Education Standards and recent Australian state reforms, require that something of the big picture of science be conveyed to students (the relationship of science to culture, commerce, history and philosophy) – it is suggested that these educational goals can be advanced by teaching about the fate of Huygens' proposal.     

Constructivism and science education: Some epistemological problems

The paper outlines the significant influence of constructivism in contemporary science and mathematics education and emphasizes the central role that epistemology plays in constructivist theory and practice. It is claimed that constructivism is basically a variant of old-style empiricist epistemology, which had its origins in Aristotle's individualist and sense-based theory of knowledge. There are well-known problems with empiricism from which constructivism appears unable to dissociate itself.     

Native american related materials in elementary science instruction

The low achievement of Native American students, as measured by standardized tests, results from a number of factors, including the lack of cultural relevance of curriculum materials used in their instruction. Using a pretest–posttest control group design, Native American students in Bureau of Indian Affairs schools in Grades 4–8 who were taught science using culturally relevant materials achieved significantly higher and displayed a significantly more positive attitude toward Native Americans and science than comparable students who were taught science without the culturally relevant materials. It is suggested that when educators of Native Americans teach science, they should use materials that incorporate frequent reference to Native Americans and science.     

Temporal processing and reading disability

The present investigation examined thehypothesis that early auditory temporalprocessing deficits cause later specificreading disability by impairing phonologicalprocessing (Farmer & Klein 1995; Tallal1980, 1984). Temporal processing ability atschool entry was examined using Tallal'sRepetition Test in a large unselected sample ofover 500 children followed over subsequentyears. Although our data confirmed the presenceof certain non-speech auditory processingdeficits in children later classified asspecific reading-disabled, many findings wereclearly at odds with a causal interpretation ofthis relationship. (1) Reading-disabled (RD)children were impaired at school entry on thesubtest with long interstimulus intervals(ISIs) but not the critical short-ISIsubtest. (2) RD children were not inferior toreading-age (RA) controls. (3) A subgroup of RDchildren with evidence of temporal deficitswere no less proficient on later phonologicalor reading measures than RD children with noevidence of early temporal impairment. (4)Although there was a reliable concurrentcorrelation between temporal deficits andphonological awareness at school entry(suggesting a possible common causeexplanation), early temporal deficits did notpredict later phonological impairment,pseudoword processing difficulties, or specificreading disability. On the other hand, earlytemporal deficits did predict later oralreceptive vocabulary and reading comprehensionweaknesses. These findings suggest thatauditory temporal deficits in dyslexics may beassociated with the same dysphasic-typesymptoms observed by Tallal and her colleaguesin specific language-impaired populations, butdo not cause the core phonological deficitsthat characterize dyslexic groups.     

Motivational mechanisms and schedule-induced behavioral stereotypy

In two experiments, behavioral stereotypies elicited by scheduled presentations of food and water were compared. In Experiment 1, pigeons were exposed to a fixed-time 30-sec (FT 30-sec) schedule of food or water deliveries with a brightening keylight stimulus signaling time to the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) on each trial. Food and water presentations both produced terminal autoshaped keypecking that was similarly distributed in the trial but differed in response topography and persistence. Locomotor interim behavior was different in the two motivational conditions: With food presentations, it consisted of a “retreat” to the rear of the chamber after UCS termination, followed by “pacing” in the midportion of trials. The water schedule produced very little locomotor activity with no regular distribution in the trial. Experiment 2, using a random-time 30-sec (RT 30-sec) schedule, showed that the differences in interim locomotor behavior persisted in the absence of temporal predictability of the UCS and the keypecking terminal response. The results are taken to support Timberlake’s (1983a) behavior-system theory.