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Why compulsory science education should not include philosophy of science

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-16, 18:11 authored by Davson-Galle, P
Like many readers of this journal, I have long been an advocate of having science students introduced to philosophy of science. In particular, influenced by the Philosophy for Children movement founded by Matthew Lipman, I have advocated such an introduction as early as possible and have championed early secondary school as an appropriate place. Further, mainstream science curricula in a number of countries have, for some time now, supported such introductions (albeit of a more limited sort) under the banner of introducing students to the "Nature of Science". In this paper, I explore a case against such introductions, partly in role as "Devil's Advocate" and partly exploring genuine qualms that have come to disturb me. Generally speaking, my judgement is that no justification is available in terms of benefit to the individual or to society of sufficient weight to outweigh the loss of freedom of choice involved in such forced learning. One possible exception is a minimalist and intellectually passive "Nature of Science" introduction to some uncontroversial philosophical views about science.

History

Publication title

Science & Education

Volume

17

Issue

7

Pagination

677-716

ISSN

1573-1901

Department/School

Faculty of Education

Publisher

Springer

Place of publication

Netherlands

Rights statement

Copyright 2006 Springer

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Policies and development