How Hands-On Implicitly Informs “What Counts” as Science

Abstract

To ask the question “what counts as science,” we need to examine the norms, values, and cultural scripts that animate our answers. What sorts of history, authority, and schemata influence our assumptions about science learning and teaching? This chapter attempts to unpack seemingly commonsense answers to this question. We argue that underlying popular and academic assumptions about “what counts” as science is the cultural script of “hands-on.”