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My intention is to cast light on the characteristics of epistemic or fundamental research (in contrast to application-oriented research). I contrast a Baconian notion of objectivity, expressing a correspondence of the views of scientists to the facts, with a pluralist notion, involving a critical debate between conflicting approaches. These conflicts include substantive hypotheses or theories but extend to values as well. I claim that a plurality of epistemic values serves to accomplish a non-Baconian form of objectivity that is apt to preserve most of the intuitions tied to the objectivity of science. For instance, pluralism is the only way to cope with the challenge of preference bias. Furthermore, the plurality of epistemic values cannot be substantially reduced by exploring the empirical success of scientific theories distinguished in light of particular such values. However, in addition to pluralism at the level of theories and value-commitments alike, scientific research is also characterized by a joint striving for consensus which I trace back to a shared epistemic attitude. This attitude manifests itself, e.g., in the willingness of scientists to subject their claims to empirical scrutiny and to respect rational argument. This shared epistemic attitude is embodied in rules adopted by the scientific community concerning general principles of dealing with knowledge claims. My contention is that pluralism and consensus formation can be brought into harmony by placing them at different levels of consideration: at the level of scientific reasoning and at the level of social conventions regarding how to deal with claims put forward within the scientific community.

Truth is for sale today, some critics claim. The increased commodification of science corrupts it, scientific fraud is rampant and the age-old trust in science is shattered. This cynical view, although gaining in prominence, does not explain very well the surprising motivation and integrity that is still central to the scientific life. Although scientific knowledge becomes more and more treated as a commodity or as a product that is for sale, a central part of academic scientific practice is still organized according to different principles. In this paper, I critically analyze alternative models for understanding the organization of knowledge, such as the idea of the scientific commons and the gift economy of science. After weighing the diverse positive and negative aspects of free market economies of science and gift economies of science, a commons structured as a gift economy seems best suited to preserve and take advantage of the specific character of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, commons and gift economies promote the rich social texture that is important for supporting central norms of science. Some of these basic norms might break down if the gift character of science is lost. To conclude, I consider the possibility and desirability of hybrid economies of academic science, which combine aspects of gift economies and free market economies. The aim of this paper is to gain a better understanding of these deeper structural challenges faced by science policy. Such theoretical reflections should eventually assist us in formulating new policy guidelines.

The present transformation of the university system is conceptualized in terms of such terminologies as "Mode-2 knowledge production" and the "entrepreneurial university." What is remarkable about these analyses is how closely they link the generally accepted requirement of more socially relevant knowledge to the commercialization of university research. This paper critically examines the Mode-1/Mode-2 distinction through a combination of philosophical and empirical analysis. It argues that, from the perspective of actual scientific practice, this Mode-1/Mode-2 distinction and the related transition thesis do not stand closer scrutiny. Theoretical "Mode-1" science shares "Mode-2" features in being also problem-oriented, interventive and transdisciplinary. On the other hand, the empirical case on language technology demonstrates that even in "Mode-2"-like research, undertaken in the "context of application," scientists make a distinction between more difficult scientific problems and those that are considered more applied or commercial. Moreover, the case shows that the need to make such distinctions may even become more acute due to the compromises imposed by the commercialization of research.

In recent years, there has been upsurge of interest in the applications of interdisciplinary perspectives on science in science education. Within this framework, the implications of the so-called "economics of science" is virtually an uncharted territory. In this paper, we trace a set of arguments that provide a dialectic engagement with two conflicting agendas: (a) the broadening of science education to include the contextual positioning of science including economical dimensions of science, and (b) the guarding of the proliferation and reinforcement of those aspects of economics of science such as commodification of scientific knowledge that embraces inequity and restricted access to the products of the scientific enterprise. Our aim is broadly to engage, as science education researchers, in the debates in economics of science so as to investigate the reciprocal interactions that might exist with science education. In so doing, we draw out some recommendations whereby the goals of science education might provide as much input into the intellectual debates within philosophy of science on issues related to the commercialisation and commodification of scientific knowledge. We explore some implications of commodification of science in the context of modelling and argumentation in science education.

Hasok Chang ("Sci Educ" 20:317-341, 2011) shows how the recovery of past experimental knowledge, the physical replication of historical experiments, and the extension of recovered knowledge can increase scientific understanding. These activities can also play an important role in both science and history and philosophy of science education. In this paper I describe the implementation of an integrated learning project that I initiated, organized, and structured to complement a course in history and philosophy of the life sciences (HPLS). The project focuses on the study and use of descriptions, observations, experiments, and recording techniques used by early microscopists to classify various species of water flea. The first published illustrations and descriptions of the water flea were included in the Dutch naturalist Jan Swammerdam's, "Historia Insectorum Generalis" (1669) ("Algemeene verhandeling van de bloedeloose dierkens." t'Utrrecht, Meinardus van Dreunen, ordinaris Drucker van d'Academie). After studying these, we first used the descriptions, techniques, and nomenclature recovered to observe, record, and classify the specimens collected from our university ponds. We then used updated recording techniques and image-based keys to observe and identify the specimens. The implementation of these newer techniques was guided in part by the observations and records that resulted from our use of the recovered historical methods of investigation. The series of HPLS labs constructed as part of this interdisciplinary project provided a space for students to consider and wrestle with the many philosophical issues that arise in the process of identifying an unknown organism and offered unique learning opportunities that engaged students' curiosity and critical thinking skills.

Progressive interpretations of scientific theories have long been denounced as naive, because of the inescapability of meaning variance. The charge reportedly applies to recent realist moves that focus on theory-parts rather than whole theories. This paper considers the question of what "theory-parts" of epistemic significance (if any) relevantly accumulate through theory-change and identifies a form of theory-parts seemingly suitable for the realist agenda. My starting point is a notion of cumulative theoretical description lifted from instances of inter-theoretic dialogue in scientific practice.

Several scientists, scientific institutions, and philosophers have argued that science is committed to Methodological Naturalism (MN), the view that science, by virtue of its methods, is limited to studying "natural" phenomena and cannot consider or evaluate hypotheses that refer to supernatural entities. While they may in fact exist, gods, ghosts, spirits, and extrasensory or psi phenomena are inherently outside the domain of scientific investigation. Recently, Mahner ("Sci Educ" 3:357-371, 2012) has taken this position one step further, proposing the more radical view that science presupposes an a "priori" commitment not just to MN, but also to ontological naturalism (ON), the metaphysical thesis that supernatural entities and phenomena do not exist. Here, we argue that science presupposes neither MN nor ON and that science can indeed investigate supernatural hypotheses via standard methodological approaches used to evaluate any "non-supernatural" claim. Science, at least ideally, is committed to the pursuit of truth about the nature of reality, whatever it may be, and hence cannot exclude the existence of the supernatural a "priori," be it on methodological or metaphysical grounds, without artificially limiting its scope and power. Hypotheses referring to the supernatural or paranormal should be rejected not because they violate alleged a "priori" methodological or metaphysical presuppositions of the scientific enterprise, but rather because they fail to satisfy basic explanatory criteria, such as explanatory power and parsimony, which are routinely considered when evaluating claims in science and everyday life. Implications of our view for science education are discussed.

This paper presents and comments on Mario Bunge's scientific realism. After a brief introduction in Sects. 1 and 2 outlines Bunge's conception of realism. Focusing on the case of quantum mechanics, Sect. 3 explores how his approach plays out for problematic theories. Section 4 comments on Bunge's project against the background of the current debate on realism in contemporary analytic philosophy.

This paper defends the view that metaphysical naturalism is a constitutive ontological principle of science in that the general empirical methods of science, such as observation, measurement and experiment, and thus the very production of empirical evidence, presuppose a no-supernature principle. It examines the consequences of metaphysical naturalism for the testability of supernatural claims, and it argues that explanations involving supernatural entities are pseudo-explanatory due to the many semantic and ontological problems of supernatural concepts. The paper also addresses the controversy about metaphysical versus methodological naturalism.

Bunge's writings on the mind-body problem provide a rigorous, analytical antidote to the persistent anti-materialist tendency that has characterized the history of philosophy and science. Bunge gives special attention to dualism and its shortcomings, and this attention is welcome in view of the resurgence of the doctrine today. However, I focus my comments selectively on Bunge's more controversial, provocative claims, not to dismiss them, but to engage with them seriously. For example, a difficulty arising from Bunge's rhetorical style and its undoubted virtues is that not all the targets of his self-confessed "bashings" ("2010", xi) are equally deserving. For example, Bunge suggests "most contemporary philosophers of mind are indifferent to psychology, or are remarkably uninformed about it". This charge cannot be sustained today in light of the work of foremost philosophers today.

Mario Bunge has repeatedly discussed contributions to philosophy and to science that are worthless at best and dangerous at worst, especially cases of pseudo-science. He clearly gives his reason in his latest essay on this matter: "The fact that science can be faked to the point of deceiving science lovers suggests the need for a rigorous sifting device". Moreover, this sifting has its rewards, as "sometimes intellectual gold comes mixed with muck". Furthermore, the sifting device is a demarcation of science, which answers interesting questions: what is valuable in science and what makes it tick? The question is under dispute. So before coming to it we should admit a few preliminary ideas that are more difficult to contest than ideas that purport to demarcate science.

This paper discusses the findings of a search for the intellectual tools used by Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) in his chemistry, education, and theology documents. Priestley's enquiring democratic view of knowledge was applicable in all three areas and constitutes a significant part of his lifework. Current epistemological issues in science education are examined from the point of view of the nature of theory and experiment as observed in Priestley's writings and as espoused in modern philosophy of science. Science and religious faith issues in the context of science education are examined from the point of view of one's understanding of sacred texts, and the suggestion is made that a Priestleyan model of "the liberty to think for oneself" and "to hold knowledge with humility and virtue" could prove helpful in dealing with the known divergent opinions in relation to science, education, and religion.

In physics, the borderline between pure science and technology is increasingly diffuse. Physics can be seen as technoscience, a merged scientific and technological enterprise. The notion of technoscience has emerged from studies in the philosophy of science and sociology of science, and also seems to arise quite naturally in discussions with practicing scientists and as an underpinning of actual scientific practices. Nanophysics, the activities of which are closely connected with the advancement of technology and where modelling and simulations are extensively used, is a natural place to test how the ideas contained in technoscience can be used to understand these central activities and how they are learned. The views of physicists, both experts and novices, working on modelling and simulation problems in nanophysics and nanotechnology are examined in this study using multidimensional methods, to discover their views on how knowledge in their research field is acquired, constructed and justified--and how novices are enculturated into these knowledge-construction processes. Additionally, attention is paid to the question of the skills that are needed and how these skills, alongside the views of modelling, develop as a novice becomes an expert. The need to understand these basic epistemological processes is quite apparent from the viewpoint of understanding science, as well as in terms of using this understanding to guide education. The results of the analysis strongly suggest that ideas characterising technoscience are also present in the practitioners' views; the technoscientific view can thus be used to understand and support the poorly understood process in which novices are enculturated as researchers in the field.

This article sketches a framework of ideas developed in the context of decades of physics teacher-education that was entitled the "perceptional approach". Individual learning and the scientific enterprise are interpreted as different manifestations of the same process aimed at understanding the natural and social worlds. The process is understood to possess the basic nature of perception, where empirical meanings are first born and then conceptualised. The accumulation of perceived gestalts in the "structure of the mind" leads to structural perception and the generation of conceptual hierarchies, which form a general principle for the expansion of our understanding. The process undergoes hierarchical development from early sensory perception to individual learning and finally to science. The process is discussed in terms of a three-process dynamic. Scientific and technological processes are driven by the interaction of the mind and nature. They are embedded in the social process due to the interaction of individual minds. These sub-processes are defined by their aims: The scientific process affects the mind and aims at understanding; the technological process affects nature and aims at human well-being; and the social process aims at mutual agreement and cooperation. In hierarchical development the interaction of nature and the mind gets structured into a "methodical cycle" by procedures involving conscious activities. Its intuitive nature is preserved due to subordination of the procedures to empirical meanings. In physics, two dimensions of hierarchical development are distinguished: Unification development gives rise to a generalisation hierarchy of concepts; Quantification development transfers the empirical meanings to quantities, laws and theories representing successive hierarchical levels of quantitative concepts. Consequences for physics teaching are discussed in principle, and in the light of examples and experiences from physics teacher education.

That Intelligent Design Creationism rejects the methodological naturalism of modern science in favor of a premodern supernaturalist worldview is well documented and by now well known. An irony that has not been sufficiently appreciated, however, is the way that ID Creationists try to advance their premodern view by adopting (if only tactically) a radical "postmodern" perspective. This paper will reveal the deep threads of postmodernism that run through the ID Creationist movement's arguments, as evidenced in the writings and interviews of its key leaders. Seeing their arguments and activities from this perspective highlights the danger to science posed by both ID Creationism and radical postmodernism.

This paper elaborates on the life and publications of Joseph Priestley, the eighteenth-century polymath. The paper outlines his particular place in the European Enlightenment; it stresses the importance of philosophy and worldview in his scientific work on pneumatic chemistry, the composition of air, and his discovery of the process of photosynthesis (or the "restoration of air" as it was called at the time); finally the paper indicates ways in which Priestley's work on photosynthesis can be utilised in the school classroom to advance the understanding of scientific subject matter, to promote an understanding of the nature of scientific procedure and methodology, and finally to evaluate some basic tenets of the European Enlightenment that Priestley so passionately advocated.

This paper discusses the impact of contemporary scientific knowledge on worldviews. The first three sections provide epistemological background for the arguments that follow. Sections 2 and 3 discuss the reliable part of science, specifically the characterization, scope and limits of the present scientific canon. Section 4 deals with the mode of thinking responsible for both the canon's credibility and its power to guide speculative activity. With these preliminaries in place, the remainder of the paper addresses the issue of tolerance to "alternative perspectives". The analyses in this part focus on the extent to which mature scientific thought embodies open-mindedness, with pluralism and competition between perspectives as central themes. I argue for four related claims, concerning scientific literacy, the impact of the canon on rational speculation, the limits of scientific pluralism, and the popular idea that recent forms of "scientific (natural) theology" have rational merit and can help worldview-making in our age, respectively: (C1) Which theories and narratives (or parts of them) belong in the scientific canon, and whether they are worldview independent, are matters contingent upon the state of knowledge--not something one can convincingly determine on metascientific or transcendental insight. (C2) The current scientific canon and its associated methodology provide research with strong directionality, often against popular currents. (C3) Current science does marginalize some views dear to many people. (C4) Although natural theology "officially" purports to embody scientific methodology, all it presently has on offer are poorly thought out ventures embodying (at best) only relaxed versions of that methodology; if so, the relationship between current projects in natural theology and science cannot (without begging the question) be reasonably described as one of "partial overlap", "mutual modification", or "ongoing complementarity".

This paper examines the relation between situated cognition theory in science education, and feminist standpoint theory in philosophy of science. It shows that situated cognition is an idea borrowed from a long since discredited philosophy of science. It argues that feminist standpoint theory ought not be indulged as it is a failed challenge to traditional philosophy of science. Standpoint theory diverts attention away from the abiding educational and career needs of women in science. In the interest of women in science, and in the interest of science, science educators would do best for their constituencies by a return to feminist philosophy understood as the demand for equal access and a level playing field for women in science and society.

Feminist standpoint theory has important implications for science education. The paper focuses on difficulties in standpoint theory, mostly regarding the assumptions that different social positions produce different types of knowledge, and that epistemic advantages that women might enjoy are always effective and significant. I conclude that the difficulties in standpoint theory render it too problematic to accept. Various implications for science education are indicated: we should return to the kind of science education that instructs students to examine whether arguments, experiments, etc. are successful, rather than ask who presented them; when considering researchers and students for science education programs we should examine their scholarly achievements, rather than the group to which they belong; women should not be discouraged from engaging in "mainstream" science research and education (or other spheres of knowledge considered as "men's topics") and men should not be discouraged from engaging in what are considered "women's topics" in science (or outside it); we should not assume that there are different types of science for women and for men, nor different ways for women and men to study science or conduct scientific research.

Feminist philosophy of science has been criticized on several counts. On the one hand, it is claimed that it results in relativism of the worst sort since the political commitment to feminism is "prima facie" incompatible with scientific objectivity. On the other hand, when critics acknowledge that there may be some value in work that feminists have done, they comment that there is nothing particularly "feminist" about their accounts. I argue that both criticisms can be addressed through a better understanding of the current work in feminist epistemology. I offer an examination of standpoint theory as an illustration. Harding and Wylie have suggested ways in which the objectivity question can be addressed. These two accounts together with a third approach, "model-based objectivity", indicate there is a clear sense in which we can understand how a standpoint theory both contributes to a better understanding of scientific knowledge and can provide a "feminist" epistemology.

In this paper, I consider the relevance of the view of cognitive existentialism to a multi-gendered picture of science education. I am opposing both the search for a particular feminist standpoint epistemology and the reduction of philosophy of science to cultural studies of scientific practices as championed by supporters of postmodern political feminism. In drawing on the theory of gender plurality and the conception of dynamic objectivity, the paper suggests a way of treating the nexus between the construction of gender within the interrelatedness of scientific practices and the constitution of particular objects of inquiry. At stake is the notion of characteristic hermeneutic situation which proves to be helpful in designing a multi-gendered pedagogy as well.

With an eye towards a potential scientific ethics curriculum, this paper examines four contrasting discourses regarding the ethics of using human subjects in science. The first two represent official statements regarding ethics. These include the U.S.'s National Science Education Standards, that identify ethics with a professional code, and the Belmont Report, that conceptualizes ethics in three principles to guide research oversight boards. Contrasting this view of ethics as decorum and practice in line with a "priori" principles is the conception of ethics from unofficial sources representing populations who have been human subjects. The first counter-discourse examined comes from "Guinea Pig Zero", an underground magazine for professional human subjects. Here ethics emerges as a question of politics over principle. The good behavior of the doctors and researchers is an effect of the politics and agency of the communities that supply science with subjects. The second counter-discourse is a comic book called "Truth", which tells the story of Black soldiers who were used as guinea pigs in World War II. Ethics is both more political and more uncertain in this narrative. Science is portrayed as complicit with the racism of NAZI Germany; at the same time, and in contrast to the professional guinea pigs, neither agency nor politics are presented as effective tools for forcing the ethical conduct of the scientific establishment. The conclusion examines the value of presenting all of these views of scientific ethics in science education.

In view of the complex problems of this age, the question of the socio-ethical dimension of science acquires particular importance. We approach this matter from a philosophical and sociological standpoint, looking at such focal concerns as the motivation, purposes and methods of scientific activity, the ambivalence of scientific research and the concomitant risks, and the conflict between research freedom and external socio-political intervention. We then point out the impediments to the effectiveness of cross-disciplinary or broader meetings for addressing these complex problems and managing the associated risks, given the difficulty in communication between experts in different fields and non-experts, difficulties that education is challenged to help resolve. We find that the social necessity of informed decision-making on the basis of cross-disciplinary collaboration is reflected in the newer curricula, such as that of Greece, in aims like the acquisition of cross-subject knowledge and skills, and the ability to make decisions on controversial issues involving value conflicts. The interest and the reflections of the science education community in these matters increase its--traditionally limited--contribution to the theoretical debate on education and, by extension, the value of science education in the education system.

In sharp contrast to the early positivist view of the nature of science and scientific knowledge, Kuhn argues that the scientific enterprise involves states of continuous, gradual development punctuated by comparatively rare instances of turmoil and change, which ultimately brings about a new stability and a qualitatively changed knowledge base. Although this discontinuous or nonlinear view of scientific knowledge is shared by a number of philosophers of science and science educators currently, Kuhn's description of how progress in science occurs has never been formally modeled from a nonlinear mathematical perspective. In this article, we represent aspects of Kuhn's main thesis and ideas as stated in his classic work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" using catastrophe theory, which is a particular instantiation of chaos theory capable of describing discontinuous phenomenon. Through this catastrophe theory representation we attempt to depict and develop a formal nonlinear model of scientific change. The pedagogical implications of the model developed and presented are discussed.