Lynn Burlbaw



Running head: Where in the

Where in the NOS is The Law of Nature?

Deena San Harper

deenasan@

EDCI 658

Spring, 2003

Texas A&M University, College Station

The Nature of Science

The nature of science (NOS) is the essence of what science is, the epistemology of science, not necessarily the activities related to gathering and analyzing data and drawing conclusions. The NOS, as described by Abd-El-Khalick et al. (n.d.), allows that scientific knowledge is tentative, empirically-based, subjective (theory-laden), the result of human imagination and creativity, and effected by society and culture. Also in the NOS, there is a distinction between observation and inference, there is not a regimented method for doing science, and there are distinctions that need to be recognized between scientific theories and laws. McComas et al. (1998) suggest that the NOS is what interconnects the philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology of science as applied to science teaching and learning.

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Science educators have been striving to help students understand and appreciate the study of science by emphasizing the NOS. The concept of the NOS is so important that it appears as a part of the Science Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and has made an appearance on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test administered to high school students across the state of Texas. There is a connection between the pursuit and application of the Laws of Nature, or Naturalism, from previous centuries with the twentieth and twenty-first century’s study and subsequent educational application of the NOS. The influences of philosophers of the past can be found in our present day nature of science tenets.

The History

The history of, which for this paper will be, the interchangeable Law of Nature, Natural Law, or Naturalism, extends back for centuries. The Natural Law doctrine was the basis for Stoicism of the ancient Greeks. According to Stoicism, every person is a part of nature and should live accordingly (Lynch, 1994). According to the Roman orator, Cicero of the first-century BC, “True law is right reason in agreement with Nature…one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and for all times” (Lynch, 1994). Naturalism had it’s beginnings with religious reformation and observations of Natural Laws in the seventeenth-century. John Amos Komensky (1592-1670), also known as Comenius, is one of the first who recorded his observations of an orderly world that was gradual in its changes (Gutek, 1995). From his observations, Comenius determined that an educational methodology could be created. If the natural guidelines were followed, the instructor would know when to introduce new learning because the child’s readiness levels would be recognized. Lesson presentation would be organized in increments of learning so that the student would progress steadily (Gutek, 1995). The gradual progress of learning not only applied to the daily lessons, but also to the whole life-long educational process, this was teaching according to Comenius and nature.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) in his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy also identified Natural Law. Natural Law allowed for the universe to function on its own without interference, as if it were a great perpetual machine (Gutek, 1995). Natural Law was used as a standard for evaluation, an ideal that humanity could strive towards (Lynch, 1994). For Newton, it was just a matter of utilizing scientific methods to uncover the Natural Laws. John Locke (1632-1704) was a strong supporter of empiricism, to which anything a person learns has to come through the senses by way of observation and experience. The supporters of a natural education felt that with observation and experimentation, the Laws of Nature could be discovered. Newton was convinced that with the discovery of those Laws, a mathematical formula could be made and everyone would then understand the Laws of Nature. Philosophers of the time, taking a page from Newton’s postulate, believed that the Laws of Nature could be applied to society and allow society to live in harmony with itself and nature. The philosophers felt that a natural education would bring forth from people their natural goodness and give them the coping tools necessary to live lives that embraced scientific, rational, and progressive thought (Gutek, 1995).

By the eighteenth-century, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827), influenced by Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), had developed an educational philosophy that embraced nature as something organized and with a directed purpose to be emulated by man and society. He felt humans grew according to the Laws of Nature which was similar to Comenius ideas. Interestingly, it was the essence of scientific thought and approaches that were utilized by Pestalozzi to develop his approach to education. The acquisition of knowledge was dependent on sensations, a perception of what the senses observed and then cognition, or conceptualization, of what had been perceived (Gutek, 1995). Pestalozzi, as did Newton , hoped to discover the universal Natural Laws. With his discovery, he wanted to use the laws to guide learning and establish a society based on the Natural Laws (Gutek, 1995).

The nineteenth-century saw a change from the eighteenth-century ideal of nature as a static, perpetual machine to Darwin’s ideal of nature as dynamic, changes occurring because of natural selection (Gutek, 1995). When Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published his evolutionary thesis, The Origin of Species, many social and educational theorists extended the philosophy of natural education to incorporate Darwin’s ideas. The concept of a competition between organisms for survival was considered a part of the Law of Nature. The idea of interfering with natural competition on the social level was viewed as interfering with what was a natural course for society. The essence of what science was and how it was done was influencing society as a theory called social Darwinism.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was a leader in the new social Darwinism theory, he also supported adding a science curriculum to schools and university because he knew that science would bring a society into the present and improve its economic and industrial position in the world (Gutek, 1995). Spencer was of like mind with Comenius and Pestalozzi concerning the idea that life is a process of steps; from Darwin’s theory, he added to his own theory the concept of life as a series of evolutionary steps. He believed that life and society could develop from a simple, homogenous structure to something more complex and heterogeneous (Gutek, 1995). Spencer answered his own famous question, “What Knowledge is of Most Worth?” when he advocated that education provide an individual an opportunity to develop a scientific attitude and acquire training in the physical, biological, and social sciences (Gutek, 1995). He had a strong belief that in order for a person to be functional in the ever changing world, they must have a firm foundation of scientific knowledge and methods. Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) added his proposal to an educational ideal in the form of scientific humanism. Scientific humanism proposed that science be used to interpret the universe in human terms, discover natural processes, and analyze the human condition to further civic and social responsibilities (Gutek, 1995).

During the twentieth-century, John Dewey (1859-1952), proposed a method of problem solving that he determined was scientific. He felt that the student, if trained to be an effective problem solver in school, could transfer that knowledge to everyday life (Gutek, 1995). He advanced the idea of an inquiry approach to solving problems which had it’s foundation in scientific procedure. Dewey, in 1916, argued that understanding scientific method is more important than the acquisition of scientific knowledge (McComas et al.,1998). His problem-solving approach consisted of five steps:

1. Perplexity, confusion, and doubt caused by involvement in a situation whose full character is undetermined,

In this first phase, the person’s activity is blocked by uncertainty about the nature of the obstacle blocking the

experiential course of events.

2. A conjectural anticipation that involves a tentative interpretation of the given elements of the problematic

situation and attributes to them a tendency to effect certain consequences. In other words the learner

defines the problems and located the difficulty.

3. A careful survey including an examination, inspection, exploration, and analysis of all pertinent data that

define and clarify the problem, This phase involves a consideration and investigation of the skills and

knowledge that will aid in solving the problem.

4. An elaboration of tentative hypotheses that might solve the problem.

5. Testing the projected hypothesis to secure the desired result. If the problem is solved, then the learner

resumes activity until encountering another problem (Gutek, 1995).

Dewey’s problem-solving method could be identified with what is today called the scientific method.

In 1960, the National Society for the Study of Education stated that there were two major aims of science education: one is knowledge and the other is enterprise (McComas, et al., 1998). The National Science Board, for the past twenty-five years, has surveyed the American public about their level of awareness, knowledge and interest in science. What has been determined was that a large percentage of American adults lack any understand of the nature of science (McComas et al., 1998). The explanation given by McComas et al. (1998) is in educational methodology. The American public and even some science teachers do not fully understand how science functions; students are learning the facts and figures of science, but not where this knowledge is coming from and how it is originated. The goal of those who are advocating the NOS in the classroom is to excite the students about science as an endeavor (McComas et al, 1998).

As with Naturalism, the Nature of Science is not necessarily concerned with science itself, but how science functions. The tenets of the NOS have been compiled over the last three decades from eight international science standards documents (McComas, et al. 1998). But, the ideas themselves have been in the tomes of philosophy for centuries.

Finding the historical connection between the NOS and scientists and philosophers from the past.

Concerning the tentative nature of science part of the NOS, Spencer held that knowledge is subject to change, based on the process of evolution, he writes “In science the important thing is to modify and change one’s ideas as science advances” (Sweet, n.d.).

According to the NOS, science has an empirical nature; Locke identified the empirical nature of science when he advocated the use of one’s senses to make observations.

Spencer was aware of the impact of a subjective (or theory-laden) approach to science. In his thesis, First Principles, his opinion was that to arrive “at correct judgments on disputed questions, much depends on the mental attitude preserved while listening to, or taking part in, the controversies; and for the preservation of a right attitude it is needful that we should learn how true, and yet how untrue, are average human beliefs.” Abd-El-Khalick, et al. (n.d.) quotes Popper, from 1992, stating that science never starts with a neutral observation.

There can be no argument against the NOS statement that scientific discoveries are the result of a creative and imaginative individual looking at natural phenomena and taking a leap of faith to explain the how of those phenomena. Darwin credits the formation of his theory to not only being a good observer, but also “having some power of reasoning” (Shermer, 2001). Newton stated that he kept “the subject constantly before me and wait ‘till the first dawning’s open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light” (Shermer, 2001).

Society and cultural effect scientific knowledge because they affect humans. Abd-El-Khalick, et al. (n.d.) acknowledge that science is a human enterprise which is affected by peer-reviews and changing times. Also in his thesis First Principles, Spencer states that science has “been subject to the rigorous criticism of successive generations, and have notwithstanding become ever more firmly established.” He also mentions that “scientific men throughout the world subject one another’s results to searching examination; and that error is mercilessly exposed and rejected as soon as discovered. And, finally they know that still more conclusive evidence is furnished by the daily verification of scientific predictions , and by the never-ceasing triumphs of those arts which Science guides.”

Pestalozzi had input in the development of the NOS concerning the distinction between observation and inference. Pestalozzi identified five sources of knowledge based on observations: knowledge from the senses, the knowledge of instruction, knowledge fired by the desire to know, knowledge earned by working, and knowledge from comprehension (Gutek, 1995). Pestalozzi felt that in order to fully understand natural phenomena, individuals had to assimilate their observations and make judgments or inferences. According to Abd-El-Khalick, et al. (n.d.), observations are directly accessible to the senses, whereas inferences are statements about phenomena.

The NOS states that there is not a recipe for the scientific method, scientist may “observe, compare, measure, test, speculate, hypothesize, create ideas and conceptual tools, and construct theories and explanations” (Abd-El-Khalick, et al., n.d.).to help them in their work. The steps that John Dewey outlined in his five step problem-solving method are noteworthy for this paper because Dewey believed that the scientific method is a means to train a student to be an effective problem solver in school and in everyday life (Gutek, 1995). A scientist needs to be an effective problem solver, regardless of the steps followed in that process.

The last NOS tenet explores the relationship between scientific theories and laws. Scientific theories explain how the natural world works whereas a law is a generalized statement of how the natural world behaves under certain conditions, laws can often be stated mathematically. The philosopher M. Comte believed natural laws as being an absolute and uniform method of relating and explaining phenomena (Spencer, 1864). The scientific world has recognized the establishment of statements that explain how the natural world behaves under certain conditions or how the natural world works. Science as an endeavor is very young, methods of doing science were not established until the late sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century (What is Science?, 1997). The advent of science coincides with the search by philosophers for the Law of Nature and the subsequent trend to apply scientific principles to society.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this paper fully supports the author’s belief that the study of the history of the Law of Nature by scholars has contributed to the creation of the tenets of the Nature of Science. This belief is supported by the presentation of opinion, ideas, and facts from scientists and philosophers across the centuries.

Summary

To summarize, the Nature of Science are tenets garnered from international sources to explain how science is conducted. The NOS is destined to be taught to students around the world in the hopes of increasing scientific knowledge and understanding. The NOS explains that science is tentative, empirical, subjective, it is susceptible to human influence, affected by society and culture, it must maintain a distinction between observation and inference, it does not follow a regimented method, and it emphasizes a distinction between laws and theories.

The Law of Nature, or Naturalism, is an attempt by philosophers to apply and incorporate nature’s example to life. As scientific endeavors gained momentum in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, philosophers saw a means of legitimizing their philosophies about the relationship between man and nature scientifically. Educational theories were created based on the premise that a naturally educated child would become a productive member of society.

For each of the tenets of the NOS a historical perspective was cited within the paper to verify that the Law of Nature is in the NOS.

References

Abd-El-Khalick, F. , Lederman, N. G., Bell, R. L.. & Schwartz, R. S. (n.d.). Views

of Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS): Toward Valid and Meaningful

Assessment of Learners’ Conception of Nature of Science. Retrieved April

26, 2003 from

Gutek, G. L. (1995). A History of the Western Educational Experience (2nd ed.).

Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, Inc. .

Lynch, J. E. (1994). Natural Law. In Microsoft ® Encarta. Copyright © 1994

Microsoft Corporation. Copyright © 1994 Funk & Wagnall’s Corporation.

Retrieved April 22, 2003 from

McComas, W. F. , Clough, M.P., & Almazroa, H. . (1998). The Role and

Character of the Nature of Science in Science Education. The Nature of

Science in Science Education, 3-39.

Shermer, M. L. . (2001). The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets

Nonsense. New York, N. Y. : Oxford University Press, Inc.

Spencer, H. (1862). First Principles. Retrieved April 22, 2003 from



Spencer, H. (1864). Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte.

Retrieved April 23, 2003 from

Sweet, W. (n.d.). Herbert Spencer. In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Retrieved April 22, 2003 from



What is Science?, (1997). Retrieved April 27, 2003 from



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