The Relevance of Teaching about the “Nature of Science” to Students of the Health Sciences

Abstract

This paper argues for the significance of teaching about the “nature of science” to students of Health Sciences in Norway. The national Health Sciences’ curricula contain the core subjects of biological sciences as well as the philosophy of science and research methods. Biological science research has a large influence on the evolvement of professional knowledge in the Health Sciences. However, it is likely that Health Science graduates become involved in occupations in which they are exposed to lay health claims, pseudoscience, and comparative-alternative medicine counselling. The epistemologies of normal science and alternative-comparative medicine are largely different. In a scientific evaluation-test of health claims, most of the tested Health Science students failed. In a questionnaire, many students expressed quite “ambivalent relationships” with the aims of scientific research, and their consideration of “what counts as reliable knowledge” was to some extent non-scientific. Most students expressed positive attitudes towards the use of comparative-alternative medical treatments. For students to be able to achieve skills to critically evaluate health claims, teaching about the “nature of science” might be significant, especially within the core subjects of the Health Sciences.

Keywords

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