Researching socio-scientific issues: an ontological problem

1. Researching socio-scientific issues: an ontological problem Ralph Levinson UCL-IOE r.levinson@ucl.ac.uk ESERA Summer School 2017

2. What makes that smile?

3. Single and double loop research & learning approaches (ref Wegerif) Single-loop approach Straightforward problem solving Assumptions Why we do what we do Strategies & techniques What we do Results/Outcomes What we get Double loop approach Questions beliefs/assumptions/values

4. Political driver: Scientific decision-making needs a democratic base (Chernobyl, BSE, Salmonella, Three Mile island) Problem: How can we enhance the teaching of controversial socio-scientific issues in schools? Strategy Provide teachers with better tailor made resources Outcome More confident pedagogy

5. But what one teacher said . . . What does the molecular structure of Zyklon B have to do with the morality of death camps?

6. Curriculum policy • An application of science may have social, economic and political implications, and sometimes also ethical ones. Personal and social decisions require an understanding of the science involved, but also involve knowledge and values that go beyond science(GCSE Twenty First Century Physics) • Scientific literacy enables people to use scientific principles and processes in making personal decisions and to participate in discussions of scientific issues that affect society. . . . And the economic productivity of our society is tightly linked to the scientific and technological skills of our work force. (National Science Education Standards, p.10)

7. Vision I: dominant view of science in relation to SSIs Canonical science Laws Theories Principles Facts e.g. F=ma Natural Selection SSIs Illustrates Knowledge: stabilised, essentialised Role of SSIs: illustrative Curriculum purpose: Supporting stabilised (substantive) knowledge

9. Assumptions • Realist ontology • Regularity of relationship between different entities (Covering laws) • World as closed, manipulated system • BUT • Dominant learning theories are constructivist/social constructivist (emphasis is on how the world is perceived and communicated not how the world is) • The start of the ontological problem . . .

10. Epistemological problems • The central quality of natural science . . . will not be saved by a wholesale attempt to force the science curriculum into a synthetic humanistic stance (Donnelly, 2004, pp 780-1) • . . . The potentialities of the material world are not to be altered by any number of social values, though of course, such values may well influence which possibilities are realised (Donnelly, 2002, p.138) • Truth, like evidential quality is objective, . . . the natural sciences have managed to overcome . . . Individual biases . . . (Haack, p.25)

11. Is-ought dichotomy Science is a discipline concerned exclusively with the reliability that can be attributed to factual (‘is’) statements as a result of empirical investigation. It is widely recognised that ‘is’ statements in science cannot be turned into the ‘ought’ statements of moral discourse. For example, science can fairly accurately judge the consequences of bringing together a number of sub-critical masses of U235 above a densely populated geographical area. It can say absolutely nothing, however, about whether such an action would be right or wrong. (Hall 1999).

12. In other words . . . • The practise of science is to describe the world often through experimentation. • Science practise has no intrinsic normative aspects. • Ethical and social decisions can draw on scientific evidence but the practise of science stands aloof from humanistic concerns. • SSIs/STS only have a place in the science curriculum in an illustrative sense.

13. Another approach SAQs (Legardez & Simonneaux) STEPWISE (Bencze & Carter) Vision III (Sjostrom) Issue/problem/question of social justice Contextualised/destabilised/multi-disciplinary knowledge Possible (enacted) solutions

17. What can we say about the world? • The world is describable therefore . . . • Is the world organised? • Do we organise the world? • Is Nature independent of Mind? • Does Mind organise the world?

18. Data – theory problem Why did some students draw the graph on the left? Why did some students draw the graph on the right? What message can we take from these two graphs?

19. Critical Realist approach (the natural world) • Critique of positivism and interpretivism • The existence of the world (ontology) and what we can know about it (epistemology) are distinct. • A mind-independent reality (there’s a world out there regardless . . .). It is ontologically real. • It is ontologically fallible (we can never understand it in its entirety). • Our experience and knowledge for understanding Nature change through time and place. Epistemological relativism.

20. Some crucial concepts • Causal powers (empirical, actual, real) • Structure-agency dialectic • Emergent non-reducible layers of complexity (schools, water, organic systems, families, oppression) • Social systems are real as is social discourse (mermaids are not real but myths about mermaids are) • Diverse methodological approaches.

21. Towards a solution As humans we have certain inbuilt needs and capacities Social science can say what human wellbeing might look like

22. Towards a solution . . . If one can demonstrate a systematic connection between inaccurate beliefs and oppressive social structures then one has not only explained the beliefs but shown a way to change the social structures.

23. Empiricism • Nuclear reactions can be explained through critical masses etc but can say nothing about how we should act. Humean Fact-value dichotomy Oh Sorry

24. Critical realism Our knowledge of nuclear reactions explains their power to destroy all organic life therefore we need to understand how we can organise to prevent such an outcome.

25. In other words . . . Our knowledge and understanding of science and human emancipation are intimately connected Or The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it (Karl Marx)

26. From The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin • ‘. . . Natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being . . .’

27. Děkuji