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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 12, Issue 1,
Foreword (Jun., 2011) Dana L. ZEIDLER Global sustainability and public understanding of science: The role of socioscientific issues in the international community
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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 12, Issue 1,
Foreword (Jun., 2011) Dana L. ZEIDLER Global sustainability and public understanding of science: The role of socioscientific issues in the international community
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Avoiding the Bifurcation of Science Through Prudence
My argument is also one that views the bifurcation of science into non-normative components (e.g., data gathering, observation, predictions, scientific methods and processes) and normative components (e.g., prescribing courses of action, choosing to create selected products, decisions about what ought to be done) as one that is fraught with peril. While such a distinction is, arguably, conceptually important, it can create a splintered view that allows for the abdication of any sense of responsibility during the practice of science.
That conscience is tied to a sense of prudence – a sense of acting in one’s own interest is a central point in connecting character to scientific responsibility. Here, a dynamic tension between prudence and scientific responsibility is an interesting notion as there is a kind of duality present:
…prudence [is] associated with foresight; it entails planning and is evaluative or reflective in nature. To plan ahead, to plot one’s next move, form practical judgments about public affairs and do it well also requires a sense of looking backward; examining one’s prior experiences and understanding them in contextual hindsight is necessary to contribute to a collective, socially-shared ethic of memory (see: Margalit 2002). (This is the reason Aristotle thought it difficult to teach ethics to the young for they did not have adequate experience for establishing a sense of history.) The importance of a collective memory may be understood in at least two related forms: 1) it requires cultivation of empathy about past humanity – a necessary condition to form emotive ties to the present and future; and 2) it provides a foundation of moral commitments to humanity (in contrast to parents, friends, people directly in our affairs) on which a general sense of care and morality is built. Reflective foresight then cannot be achieved without the ability to look backward – without attention to its counter part of memory. Taken together, looking forward and looking backward are the yin and the yang of prudence (Zeidler and Sadler 2008, pp. 204-205).
In the conception of science education I am proposing, prudence is expressed by virtue of the fundamental function found in the deliberate choice of what works and makes sense with respect to the quality of life for each individual, as well as how it contributes in morally just ways to community survival. As decisions are evaluated in terms of their future ecological consequences and in terms of how the amelioration of historical wrongs may be leveraged, conscience may now be allowed to emerge. This describes a world, perhaps a best-case scenario, where the practice of science becomes inseparable from acts of responsibility. In such a world, we recognize prudence as the cultivation of scientific responsibility through the expression of social justice in the scientific community. While many scientific communities are loosely articulated around the world, I believe that we must view science and science education as a global endeavor, unified by conscientious scientific thinking and acting through the formation of character. In this world, the processes of science become causally linked with the products of science. And because so much of what we do scientifically has potentially global consequences, responsibility becomes even more ethically obligatory.
Copyright (C) 2011 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 12, Issue 1, Foreword (Jun., 2011). All Rights Reserved.
