Good science and good philosophy of science

I argue against the assumption that the influence of non-cognitive values must lead to bad science, opening the way for the thesis that non-cognitive values are compatible with good science. This, in turn, allows us to answer feminist questions, principally, How do gender politics influence science? without (1) having to reject the question a priori because theories of science assume that political values cannot influence good scientific work and (2) having made a case for the influence of gender politics upon a particular bit of scientific work, being put into the ludicrous position of saying that it is bad science after all, even though the relevant community of scientists say it is good. Nevertheless, moral and political neutrality is held to be a norm of good science and a tacit metaphilosophical norm governing good philosophy of science, viz., a good philosophy of science reveals and analyzes the morally and politically neutral production of good science. This metaphilosophical norm insures that the philosophy of science (1) is blind to the influence of non-cognitive values on good science if and when these are present and so (2) acquiesces in the moral or political arrangements supported by the science in question.     

Conceptual change in science and in science education

There is substantial evidence that traditional instructional methods have not been successful in helping students to restructure their commonsense conceptions and learn the conceptual structures of scientific theories. This paper argues that the nature of the changes and the kinds of reasoning required in a major conceptual restructuring of a representation of a domain are fundamentally the same in the discovery and in the learning processes. Understanding conceptual change as it occurs in science and in learning science will require the development of a common cognitive model of conceptual change. The historical construction of an inertial representation of motion is examined and the potential instructional implications of the case are explored.The preparation of this paper was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-85-K-0337 to the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the ONR, and no official endorsement should be inferred. I wish to thank Lauren Resnick for her helpful comments and encouragement to pursue this research. I also thank Paul Thagard for introducing me to the technique of concept mapping and Gregory Nowak for his assistance in the preparation of the figures. The paper has benefited from comments by Floris Cohen, Susan Hojnacki, Thomas Kuhn, and Michael Ranney. Any misconceptions are, however, my own.     

Patriarchal science

Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood, by Cynthia Eagle Russett, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989, 245 pages, hb $25, £15.95     

Part-whole science

A scientific explanatory project, part-whole explanation, and a kind of science, part-whole science are premised on identifying, investigating, and using parts and wholes. In the biological sciences, mechanistic, structuralist, and historical explanations are part-whole explanations. Each expresses different norms, explananda, and aims. Each is associated with a distinct partitioning frame for abstracting kinds of parts. These three explanatory projects can be complemented in order to provide an integrative vision of the whole system, as is shown for a detailed case study: the tetrapod limb. My diagnosis of part-whole explanation in the biological sciences as well as in other domains exploring evolved, complex, and integrated systems (e.g., psychology and cognitive science) cross-cuts standard philosophical categories of explanation: causal explanation and explanation as unification. Part-whole explanation is itself one essential aspect of part-whole science.     

The misrepresentation of science by philosophers and teachers of science

In education there is a concern that science teachers misrepresent the nature of science to students. An assumption that is implicit in this concern is that science teachers should be teaching the philosophy of science as it is understood by philosophers. This paper argues that both philosophers and science teachers misrepresent science when they engage in their respective disciplines, and it is evident the two misrepresentations are of different types. In philosophy, the misrepresentation is of a philosophical-epistemological nature where advocates of particular views maintain that advocates of other views misinterpret the nature of science. In education, the misrepresentation is of a cognitive, teaching nature where teachers' practical interpretations are not congruent with philosophers' interpretations of science. The discrepancy that exists between the two misrepresentations is due to the intentions of the two disciplines, and assuming that science teachers should teach a philosophically coherent interpretation of the nature of science is an over-simplification of the problem. The concepts of espoused theories and theories-in-use are used to link the two interpretations of science and provide suggestions for future research that may help clarify misrepresentations of science in science education.