A family resemblance approach to the nature of science for science education

Although there is universal consensus both in the science education literature and in the science standards documents to the effect that students should learn not only the content of science but also its nature, there is little agreement about what that nature is. This led many science educators to adopt what is sometimes called “the consensus view” about the nature of science (NOS), whose goal is to teach students only those characteristics of science on which there is wide consensus. This is an attractive view, but it has some shortcomings and weaknesses. In this article we present and defend an alternative approach based on the notion of family resemblance. We argue that the family resemblance approach is superior to the consensus view in several ways, which we discuss in some detail

Evolution of science II: Insights into working of Nature

We attempt to provide a comprehensive model of evolution of science across millennia taking into account the contributions of other intellectual traditions, cultural value system and increasing in sophistication of humans in their study of nature. We also briefly discuss the role of technology and its interplay in the evolution of science. We identify five primary approaches to the study of nature, namely ad hoc formulations, religious approach, pragmatic approach, axiomatic approach and the logic based approach. Each of these approaches have had their prime periods and have contributed significantly to human understanding of nature and have also overlapped within a society. Each approach has had a central role over human evolution at some stage. We surmise that the currently dominant axiomatic method will reach its limits due to complexity of the system and may never be fully formalised. We suggest that the future progress of science will more be a logic based approach where experimentation and simulations rather than axiomatic firmness will be used to test our understanding of nature.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure

Nature, Science, Bayes' Theorem, and the Whole of Reality

A fundamental problem in science is how to make logical inferences from scientific data. Mere data does not suffice since additional information is necessary to select a domain of models or hypotheses and thus determine the likelihood of each model or hypothesis. Thomas Bayes' Theorem relates the data and prior information to posterior probabilities associated with differing models or hypotheses and thus is useful in identifying the roles played by the known data and the assumed prior information when making inferences. Scientists, philosophers, and theologians accumulate knowledge when analyzing different aspects of reality and search for particular hypotheses or models to fit their respective subject matters. Of course, a main goal is then to integrate all kinds of knowledge into an all-encompassing worldview that would describe the whole of reality

Weighted Network of Chinese Nature Science Basic Research

Using the requisition papers of Chinese Nature Science Basic Research in management and information department, we construct the weighted network of research areas({\bf WRAN}) represented by the subject codes. In WRAN, two research areas are considered connected if they have been filled in at least one requisition paper. The edge weight is defined as the number of requisition papers which have filled in the same pairs of codes. The node strength is defined as the number of requisition papers which have filled in this code, including the papers which have filled in it only. Here we study a variety of nonlocal statistics for these networks, such as typical distances between research areas through the network, and measures of centrality such as betweenness. These statistics characteristics can illuminate the global development trend of Chinese scientific study, it is also helpful to adjust the code system to reflect the real status more accurately. Finally, we present a plausible model for the formation and structure of networks with the observed properties.Comment: 8 pages, 14 figure

The Need for Empirically-Led Synthetic Philosophy

The problem of unifying knowledge represents the frontier between science and philosophy. Science approaches the problem analytically bottom-up whereas, prior to the end of the nineteenth century, philosophy approached the problem synthetically top-down. In the late nineteenth century, the approach of speculative metaphysics was rejected outright by science. Unfortunately, in the rush for science to break with speculative metaphysics, synthetic or top-down philosophy as a whole was rejected. This meant not only the rejection of speculative metaphysics, but also the implicit rejection of empirically-led synthetic philosophy and the philosophy of nature. Since a change in the paradigm of science requires a change in the philosophy of nature underpinning science, the rejection of the philosophy of nature closes science to the possibility of a paradigm change. Given the foundational problems faced by science, there is a need for empirically-led synthetic philosophy in order to discover a new empirically-based philosophy of nature. Such a philosophy of nature may open science to the possibility of a paradigm change

Cosmology and Science Education: Problems and Promises

Cosmology differs in some respects significantly from other sciences, primarily because of its intimate association with issues of a conceptual and philosophical nature. Because cosmology in the broader sense relates to the world views held by students, it provides a means for bridging the gap between the teaching of science and the teaching of humanistic subjects. Students should of course learn to distinguish between what is right and wrong about the science of the universe. No less importantly, they should learn to recognize the limits of science and that there are questions about nature that may forever remain unanswered. Cosmology, more than any other science, is well suited to illuminate issues of this kind.Comment: 37 page

Islamic Contributions to Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues

The normative practice in the history of science in the West is to start with the Greeks and then jump to the European Renaissance, both studied as a background for the emergence of modern science in the seventeenth century. More considerate works devote a few pages to the Islamic scientific tradition, as a harbinger of the Greek legacy. This practice, based on the nineteenth-century Orientalism, has seriously harmed the emergence of an accurate history of science in general and the nature of contributions made by the Islamic scientific tradition to science in particular. These accounts continue to produce a caricature of a tradition that lasted longer than the Greek and the modern scientific traditions. When placed in its own historical matrix, the nature of Islamic contributions to science is a totally different story