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Silence Science: How Evidence is Overemphasized

Writer's picture: Nicholas LinkeNicholas Linke
 

The following is a sample of Unit I: Silence Science found in my upcoming book, TANGENTS, about the state of our education system and the ways we can turn it around.


As a prior high school science teacher, I recognize society’s under-education about potential purposes, philosophical limitations, and overall applications of science. The indifference of some toward the well-being of others affects us all. Indifference to others' scientific ignorance has similar consequences.


Therefore, redefining science may help us continue the conversation beyond the classroom and produce change.


 


Ask students: What is the purpose of science? Their reluctance to answer sometimes takes the form of: I don’t know. So... I guess... to find out stuff? When pressed, the answers of: truth, real, facts, and proof often are the first to arrive. However, these words present a false purpose and ambition of science that eventually compromises the trust and acceptance of the subject. 


Overextending science to pursue these attributes, including truth, is misleading. This is, in part, due to under-educating students about the nature of science so that they guess at the limitations, expectations, and applications of science. 

Ironically, the truth is:

 I don’t know, so I guess to find out stuff

seems to be a complete answer.

Scientific illiteracy is rampant in our country. Unreasonable doubt in science is spread, citing impossible philosophical obstacles by those in power while holding no other element of our culture to such scrutiny. The present system gives the privilege of writing our moral code, ethical laws, and prescriptive survival manual to persons who question the descriptive feature of science and challenge its predictive promise. 

Science as a subject is an underrepresented education which results in the misconception that science produces proof and truth. This is coupled with inaccurate assumptions that evidence speaks for itself, and theories become laws. This grade school misrepresentation reduces science to a dead book of facts and removes the most important explanations humanity has for our existence and place in the cosmos.

Science is beyond knowledge. 

Science is argumentation: logic and reasoning.

Below is a connection between Scientific Argumentation and the Claims Evidence Reasoning Model used to teach students how science builds arguments. Claims, as a law and theory, state that if X occurs, then Y will result, because Z. Evidence, as scientific data, supports the claim from E1-E4. Reasoning provides the justification for why the claim is supported by the evidence.





Scientific Argumentation: Claims - Evidence- Reasoning Model 

Science is malleable and plastic, and it changes. The difference between science and religion is that science changes and adapts to new evidence and challenges; religion privileges belief despite no evidence and celebrates faith in spite of contrary evidence. This tentative feature of science makes it an argument rather than a conviction that requires belief and faith.

Science is not composed of agreements but rather built through arguments. Scientific argumentation begins with a claim or prediction as an if…, then… statement, the law part of a hypothesis. The because… is the theory part of the hypothesis. The evidence supports the claim or statement but never proves it. 

Evidence never speaks for itself. 

In the heartland of the United States, this unresolved conflict compromises science classrooms with a lack of teacher confidence, risk of local controversy, and even omission due to personal denial. Editing argumentation and reducing science education to facts and evidence is not only an obvious example of silencing science; but is removing this crucial curriculum is a reminder that cornerstones of knowledge are still controlled by the institutional ignorance in power to keep the perspective of ourselves from changing.

The answer to the final question: what is the purpose of science? still rests with the students. The next generation ought to be focused on the urgency of scientific prominence in decisions to: mitigate and reverse the dire climate crisis, allow flexibility in the legal language defined by scientific disciplines rather than politics; and pursue the prescriptive role of science to maintain sustainable survival of the country, species, and planet. 

They have to be educated on how to argue for it.

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