Keith S. Taber
Ralph was a participant in the Understanding Science project. When I interviewed him in his first term of upper secondary science he told me he was studying a range of topics in science, so I asked him what was common to these topics that made these different lessons all science.
I: So what makes that science, then, because it all seems so varied?
R: Well (Exhales) – physics is kind of like just like, distinguishing it from like, like forces and the things that we can't really see, so it's like, whereas chemistry is like big bangs and things so you can like, very visual one, and biology is like understanding the human body and things, so, I've completely forgotten what the original question was.
I: So what makes physics, chemistry and biology science, why don't we just call them three separate subjects, have they got anything in common?
R: Mm, erm. Er (Pause, c.2s, then Ralph exhales) … Erm, it's more because they're kind of like, they are laws so they kind of like effect, so these things have to be true. Whereas kind of in English and things, yeah that's fine, but they can be changed with different places, depending where you are, whereas, with science, it will always be the same. It's like maths because maths is kind of like physics and physics uses maths, because maths will always be the same wherever you go, 'cause the, you can't like, you can't say like in one place that two will equal two and in another place two will equal three or something. They've always got to be the same.
So for Ralph, a distinguishing criterion for science (and maths) was the universal nature of science: that it offered laws which "will always be the same". This is an interesting observation about the nature of science, with Ralph rejecting any relativistic notions of science, which might apply to some other subjects ("they can be changed with different places, depending where you are"). The need for scientific laws to apply regardless of context would be widely accepted, although Ralph's comments could also be seen to ignore the provisional nature of science (e.g. if laws are seen as human constructions to interpret patterns in nature, rather than understood as given in nature).
(Although Ralph observed that because they are laws these things have to be true, when he attempted to exemplify this in physics, chemistry and biology, he was not able to suggest clear examples of universal laws in science.)
