Post discussion notes
Enjoyed and appreciated the diversity of perspectives brought to bear. A little disappointed by the low numbers of science faculty involved, but that may be relevant in one way or another to the conversation/issues.
A few things that stuck in my mind, for my own continuing thinking and whatever use they might be to others ...
- It is characteristic of science to "leave open" what it does not yet have a "good" explanation for (one that motivates new observations/questions) rather than to create something that is an "answer" and hence ends the exploration.
- This is closely related to Orah's quote from Popper - "science should be visualized as progressing from problems to problems - to problems of ever increasing depth" and her gloss that evolution (and science?) "moves into the chaotic leaving paths of organization in its wake" whereas other things are motivated by "leaving disorder in our wake as we traverse a predestined path".
- "Science as Story Telling and Story Revising", as "getting it less wrong" (the conceptual foundations of my talk), is very much in the spirit of moving into the unknown leaving "organization in its wake" rather than that of progress towards a "final destination".
- I very much agree with Orah that, in conflict with this, students by and large "are taught that there is a reward and rest-stasis at the point of getting-it-right". And, moreover, that this is a problem not only in the teaching of science but in the teaching of most disciplines and perhaps in education generally.
- The problem of "scientism" and its inhibiting/paralyzing effects on other disciplines/forms of inquiry is indeed, as Sandy argued, one that needs to be taken seriously.
- I'm less inclined though than Sandy to blame that problem on "science". Just as the problem of teaching in ways that encourage "getting it right" occurs in all disciplines, so too, it seems to me, the problem of disciplines choking off potentially productive lines of inquiry in pursuit of "rigor" is also not even remotely restricted to the sciences. At the same time, "science certainly encourages it, and so it is appropriate that science should contribute to correcting it."
- Part of why I'm disappointed by the relative low numbers of scientists at our discussion is that I don't think that, by and large, scientists are as aware of this problem as they need to be, and could and should be playing a more active role in correcting it. At the same time, "science" is, like all human institutions, a social construct, and attacking "science" for particular sins (that are not in fact distinctive for it) is to contribute to reifying a social construct and, in this case, one that could help to correct the bigger problem.
Much better, it seems to me, is to recognize that "the evolution of understandings of science is too important to be left solely in the hands of a closed community of scientists. What is needed is ... a more diverse array of human beings who have in common a shared sense of science as a valuable component of human culture and a willingness to shoulder the burden of making it into what it has the capability to become ... a nexus point that encourages and supports the evolution of shared human stories of exploration and growth".
- The issue here is very much NOT the "colonization of humanity" by science. "The stories science has to tell should of course be made more widely available and accessible, but not simply to enlighten non-scientists. Equally important is the central role that all of humanity needs to continue to play in the stories that science evolves, both about the world and about itself."
- "Scientism" = narrow conceptions of method will be most effectively opposed by an alliance of people committed to continual and open-ended inquiry rather than by attacking science. Many scientists are already committed to such an alliance, and more would become actively involved if the issues were made clear to them in their general form.
- The status of "compassion" in science is an interesting and important one. And it is an issue that, I freely admit, I didn't anticipate in thinking about the "Overview" I prepared. Which is, I think, relevant, as is item 4 in the "Suggested Guidelines for Curricular Revision" which it includes: "Recognize that, for all populations, it is valuable to appreciate the interconnectedness of scientific inquiries and broader individual and social inquiries, issues, and concerns."
- "Compassion" is NOT, I think, a starting point for science, at least not for science as I understand it. "science is inevitably a destabilizing and revolutionary force with regard to all existing understandings" and, in these terms, can (and should be) at times quite INcompassionate. Its distinctive cultural task is not to comfort but to challenge.
- It does not follow from that that compassion and caring are incompatible with science nor that science may not contribute in important ways to encouraging compassion and caring. Scientists are, and science is, a component of a broader culture that includes other components with other values ("compassion" and "caring" among them). And science most meaningfully advances in its own terms when it effectively intersects (bidirectionally) with those.
- If one's PRIMARY commitment is to "compassion" and "caring" one is probably best off with a primary commitment to some cultural entity other than science, but one can and should nonetheless find in science what is useful to oneself and contribute to science what is useful to it.
- These sorts of general issues are important to talk through but even with agreement on them (should that be achievable) "the devil is in the details". I'd intended to have more exploration of the idea that commonalities among different populations in science education actually had implications and advantages for concrete curricular revisions. Hopefully we can move further in such on the ground directions as the semester's conversation continues, using the generalities to inform the specifics and vice versa.
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