Investigating the Potential for Unanticipated Consequences of Teaching the Tentative Nature of Science

Authors

William W. Cobern, Western Michigan UniversityFollow
Betty A.J, Adams, Western Michigan UniversityFollow
Brandy A.S. Pleasants, Western Michigan UniversityFollow
Andrew P. Bentley, University of Northern ColoradoFollow
Robert Kagumba, Delta State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

3-31-2019

Abstract

If you are reading information supportive of climate science, you may well read that climate science is “settled science.” If you are reading something from a climate science skeptic, you may well read that climate science is “just a theory.” Given that the science education community strongly supports teaching the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, one might think that the skeptic has a legitimate argument. Experts will quickly object that such a deduction is quite wrong, and we agree. Nevertheless, we can’t help but wonder to what extent teaching the tentative nature of scientific knowledge might undermine confidence in science, especially for those who have not grasped important epistemological nuances. Our paper reports the findings from an initial exploration of this possibility.

Comments

Paper presentation at the 2019 Annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Baltimore, MD, March 31-April 3. Presented by Dr. Robert Kagumba.

WMU ScholarWorks Citation

Cobern, William W.; Adams, Betty A.J,; Pleasants, Brandy A.S.; Bentley, Andrew P.; and Kagumba, Robert, "Investigating the Potential for Unanticipated Consequences of Teaching the Tentative Nature of Science" (2019). Science Teaching and Learning. 1.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/science-teaching/1