Overview
- Shows how transgression of objectivity helps to understand how scientific progress is at a crossroads
- Accounts how the science education community conceptualizes objectivity
- Explores how objectivity as a universal value may be challenged while studying controversies in science
Part of the book series: Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education (CTISE, volume 46)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- Philosophy of science
- evolution of objectivity
- Transgression of objectivity
- objectivity in the history of science
- objectivity in science
- history of objectivity
- objectivity science education
- history of science
- understanding of objectivity
- evolving nature of objectivity
- empiricist epistemology
- Science Education
About this book
This book explores the evolving nature of objectivity in the history of science and its implications for science education. It is generally considered that objectivity, certainty, truth, universality, the scientific method and the accumulation of experimental data characterize both science and science education. Such universal values associated with science may be challenged while studying controversies in their original historical context. The scientific enterprise is not characterized by objectivity or the scientific method, but rather controversies, alternative interpretations of data, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Although objectivity is not synonymous with truth or certainty, it has eclipsed other epistemic virtues and to be objective is often used as a synonym for scientific.
Recent scholarship in history and philosophy of science has shown that it is not the experimental data (Baconian orgy of quantification) but rather the diversity / plurality in a scientificdiscipline that contributes toward understanding objectivity. History of science shows that objectivity and subjectivity can be considered as the two poles of a continuum and this dualism leads to a conflict in understanding the evolving nature of objectivity.
The history of objectivity is nothing less than the history of science itself and the evolving and varying forms of objectivity does not mean that one replaced the other in a sequence but rather each form supplements the others.
This book is remarkable for its insistence that the philosophy of science, and in particular that discipline’s analysis of objectivity as the supposed hallmark of the scientific method, is of direct value to teachers of science. Meticulously, yet in a most readable way, Mansoor Niaz looks at the way objectivity has been dealt with over the years in influential educational journals and in textbooks; it’s fascinating how certain perspectives fade, while basic questions show no sign of going away. There are few books that take both philosophy and education seriously – this one does!
Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University, chemist, writer and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Evolving Nature of Objectivity in the History of Science and its Implications for Science Education
Authors: Mansoor Niaz
Series Title: Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67726-2
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-67725-5Published: 06 November 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-88476-9Published: 25 August 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-67726-2Published: 26 October 2017
Series ISSN: 1878-0482
Series E-ISSN: 1878-0784
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 237
Topics: Science Education, History of Science, Philosophy of Science