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Enhancing Teachers’ Awareness About Relations Between Science and Religion

The Debate Between Steady State and Big Bang Theories

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Abstract

Educators advocate that science education can help the development of more responsible worldviews when students learn not only scientific concepts, but also about science, or “nature of science”. Cosmology can help the formation of worldviews because this topic is embedded in socio-cultural and religious issues. Indeed, during the Cold War period, the cosmological controversy between Big Bang and Steady State theory was tied up with political and religious arguments. The present paper discusses a didactic sequence developed for and applied in a pre-service science teacher-training course on history of science. After studying the historical case, pre-service science teachers discussed how to deal with possible conflicts between scientific views and students’ personal worldviews related to religion. The course focused on the study of primary and secondary sources about cosmology and religion written by cosmologists such as Georges Lemaître, Fred Hoyle and the Pope Pius XII. We used didactic strategies such as short seminars given by groups of pre-service teachers, videos, computer simulations, role-play, debates and preparation of written essays. Along the course, most pre-service teachers emphasized differences between science and religion and pointed out that they do not feel prepared to conduct classroom discussions about this topic. Discussing the relations between science and religion using the history of cosmology turned into an effective way to teach not only science concepts but also to stimulate reflections about nature of science. This topic may contribute to increasing students’ critical stance on controversial issues, without the need to explicitly defend certain positions, or disapprove students’ cultural traditions. Moreover, pre-service teachers practiced didactic strategies to deal with this kind of unusual content.

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Notes

  1. Survey published on March 29, 2010, by Datafolha Institute. Access in January, 2015, http://datafolha.folha.uol.com.br/opiniaopublica/2010/04/1223573-59-acreditam-na-evolucao-entre-as-especies-sob-o-comando-de-deus.shtml.

  2. El-Hani and Sepúlveda (2010, p. 104) understand epistemological absolutism as the thesis that “humans can have access to ideas about the world that might be proved beyond all doubt, and, thus, become indisputable truths or even pictures of reality-in-itself”.

  3. Due to the multiplicity and complexity of relations between sciences and religions, these categories are neither rigid nor exclusive. One author can sustain a combination of two or more categories, or show positions that change along his life. Science educators have proposed similar categories; for instance, Shipman et al. (2002, p. 532), used Distinct, Convergent, Transitional and Confrontational. El-Hani and Sepúlveda (2010, p. 107) discussed three categories similar to Conflict, Integration and Independence.

  4. The Anthropic Principle states “what we can expect to observe must be restricted by the conditions necessary for our presence as observers” (Carter 1974). However, there is no need to assume the existence of God to explore this concept in cosmological studies. See also Barrow and Tipler (1988).

  5. Background microwave radiation is a thermal radiation detected in every direction with nearly uniform intensity; according to the Big Bang theory, it is a remnant radiation from the hot and dense primordial universe that cooled slowly while expanding.

  6. Gamow, however, never liked this name. He preferred to call his approach the “evolutionary cosmology”, for which the universe started with a “Big Squeeze” (Gamow 1952).

  7. http://www.news.va/en/news/francis-in-the-pontifical-academy-of-sciences-emph, address to The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Vatican City, 27 October 2014, Access on November 2014.

  8. http://www.cdcc.usp.br/cda/.

  9. The main secondary sources used in this study were the books Cosmology and Controversy (Kragh 1996), Matter and Spirit in the Sky (Kragh 2004), Cosmology, the Science of the Universe (Harrison 2000) and the final chapters of the book O Universo (Martins 1994). Some of the primary sources used were books devoted to the general public by the Big Bang supporter George Gamow (1952), and by the Steady State Theory supporters Fred Hoyle (1950) and Hermann Bondi (1952).

  10. The questionnaire is translated to English in “Appendix A”.

  11. The questionnaire is translated into English in “Appendix B”.

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Acknowledgments

Alexandre Bagdonas was supported by grant #2008/07928-0, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and Cibelle Celestino Silva was partially supported by grant #311270/2012-3 (National Council of Technological and Scientific Development - CNPq).

Conflict of interest

The author’s do not have any conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós Graduação Interunidades em Ensino de Ciências, Instituto Federal de São Paulo, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Alexandre Bagdonas

  2. Grupo de História, Teoria e Ensino de Ciênciasncias, Instituto de Fı´sica de Sa˜o Carlos, Universidade de Sa˜o, São Paulo, Brazil

    Cibelle Celestino Silva

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  1. Alexandre Bagdonas
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  2. Cibelle Celestino Silva
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Correspondence to Alexandre Bagdonas.

Appendices

Appendix A: First Questionnaire About Religion, Science and Cosmology

Appendix B: Questionnaire About Relations Between Science and Religion

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Bagdonas, A., Silva, C.C. Enhancing Teachers’ Awareness About Relations Between Science and Religion. Sci & Educ 24, 1173–1199 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-015-9781-7

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