The Use of Real and Imaginary Cases in Communicating the Nature of Science: A Course Outline

Abstract

This chapter features a discussion of a three-pronged course-based approach to the nature of science within an upper level philosophy of science course at a small liberal arts university. Students in this course are typically undergraduate science majors who have chosen it as an elective to fulfill a general education requirement in the humanities. The three elements that form the focus of instruction include an examination of science as doctrine (i.e., content), as process (i.e., methods), and as social institution (i.e., values). I suggest that this approach is more informative and productive for students than traditional approaches which focus on topics such as confirmation, explanation, realism, etc. In my course I have found it profitable and interesting to use case studies as the basis for discussion of science and its nature. One such case, the mass extinction debate, is particularly illustrative and will serve as a central example of my instructional strategy in this chapter. ORGANIZATION OF THE COURSE Science as doctrine means that one way in which the sciences are conceived and demarcated from non -science is in terms of what it investigates, or in terms of its content. Many students quickly accept this distinction. After all, what students study in biology classes is quite different from what they study in foreign language courses. Science as process characterizes the sciences not in terms of what they investigate — even poets and philosophers talk about evolution -- but in terms of how they study what they study. Most students enter the philosophy of science course proclaiming reliance on and a belief in “the scientific method.” Science as a social institution looks at the sciences as enterprises conducted by scientists, real-live members of society, who reflect and shape social perspectives and values. Students are often quick to identity (and misidentify) where the sciences and society drectly interface (e.g., nuclear power). Table I is an outline of the course, with the section on “epistemic concepts” focusing on doctrine, “change and progress” examining process, and “values and society” investigating social institutions.