Demarcating science

A topic in teaching science

An authentic science education asks learners to both learn about some specific scientific ideas and also to learn something of the nature of science – the practices of scientists and the processes by which new scientific knowledge is constructed and developed. There are a number of nature of science (sometimes abbreviated to 'NOS') themes that might be thought important to teach young people about.

Read more about teaching the nature of science

The 'demarcation problem'

How do we decide what counts as science? The question of what is included as part of science, and how we decide, is sometimes known as the 'demarcation' problem.

"One key question in the philosophy of science is the demarcation of science: how we can distinguish what is and is not science. It is fairly straightforward to list some good candidates: physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, etc. It may be less obvious if we should include psychology (certainly some parts, but all?). For example there has been discussion over whether Freud’s theory and practice of psychoanalysis should count as scientific. Claims that aspects of the social sciences are genuinely scientific also lead to debate. Marx suggested he had a scientific take on history (but many commentators would not consider his research programme as scientific), and there have been schools of sociology set up to adopt a model based upon natural science." (Taber, 2017 :30)

Indeed, the 'discovery' of grounded theory, a much name-checked (and sometimes applied) methodology in the social sciences can be seen as a reaction to an earlier tendency to primarily value quantitative data and analysis in sociology to make it more like physics! Grounded theory is meant to offer a 'scientific approach' that can be applied when most data is qualitative and even might be considered by some as 'soft' (people's opinions, perceptions etc.).

Read about grounded theory

At one time it might have been suggested that sciences proceed  by 'the' scientific method, and this could be used as the demarcation criterion, however it is now widely recognised that there is no single, easily characterised scientific method.

Read about scientific method

Scientific research programmes

"One philosopher of science, Imre Lakatos…, has suggested that the criterion for scientific work is the existence of what are referred to as ‘progressive’ research programmes – where

  • there is a programme of activity informed by a set of pre-established tenets (core commitments) and where

  • the interplay between the development of theory and collection of new data continues to be productive.

Although applying this criterion requires judgement and is not straightforward, this does offer an inclusive approach that allows areas of work which admit diverse methodologies…to be considered scientific." (Taber, 2017: 30)

Using this approach, it might be judged that, say, the Marxist account of history or Freud's psychoanalytical theory  are certainly research programmes – where different researchers share basic commitments, key concepts, methodological approaches – but are not scientific research programmes because they are not sufficiently progressive.

Traditional ecological knowledge

Many traditional societies have for many thousands of years  lived in, and drawn on the resources of, their surroundings – developing sophisticated technologies and knowledge of the environment. This traditional ecological knowledge is often not considered to count as science or suitable to be included in science curriculum.

"TEK refers to the knowledge base acquired by indigenous and local peoples over many hundreds of years through direct contact with the environment. It includes an intimate and detailed knowledge of plants, animals, and natural phenomena, the development and use of appropriate technologies for hunting, fishing, trapping, agriculture, and forestry, and a holistic knowledge, or 'world view' which parallels the scientific discipline of ecology."
Inglis, 1993: 4

 

Work cited:
facebookShare on Facebook
TwitterTweet