Abstract
In light of the complex, crisis-ridden, and fast-changing world we live in today, I will argue that we should not be “teaching science” in school. It hasn’t worked anyway. Most Americans know little about science, and a great many don’t understand or respect scientific empirical evidence. We live, too, in a world where ideology and religious beliefs are deeply polarized and often lead to conflict and sometimes violence. I will advocate that schools need to motivate and teach people to be what I will call “committed testers.” Committed testers realize that any claim to know something is based on a network of related claims, not just a single claim all by itself. I will call any such network of related claims a “framework.” It is a perspective on or a theory about something that someone believes and acts on. Such frameworks can be tested against the world’s reactions to it when we act on it and in critical discussions with other people who have a different framework on some issue than we do. The goal of testing frameworks is not truth as a final destination or conversion of others. The goal is truth as a shared journey toward frameworks that work better in the world and lead to peace, not conflict. This approach is equally relevant to scientific claims and religious ones. This view of frameworks and committed testers was the foundation of much of Karl Popper’s work in the philosophy of science (see, e.g., his book The Myth of the Framework: In Defense of Science and Rationality) and is the basis of the Iranian philosopher of science and religion Abdolkarim Soroush’s highly influential work (see, e.g., Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush).
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Gee, J. (2019). Frameworks, Committed Testers, and Science as a Form of Life. In: Prain, V., Hand, B. (eds) Theorizing the Future of Science Education Research. Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education, vol 49. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24013-4_3
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