Scientism and Scientific Thinking

The move from respecting science to scientism, i.e., the idealization of science and scientific method, is simple: We go from acknowledging the sciences as fruitful human activities to oversimplifying the ways they work, and accepting a fuzzy belief that Science and Scientific Method, will give us a direct pathway to the true making of the world, all included. The idealization of science is partly the reason why we feel we need to impose the so-called scientific terminologies and methodologies to all aspects of our lives, education too. Under this rationale, educational policies today prioritize science, not only in curriculum design, but also as a method for educational practice. One might expect that, under the scientistic rationale, science education would thrive. Contrariwise, I will argue that scientism disallows science education to give an accurate image of the sciences. More importantly, I suggest that scientism prevents one of science education’s most crucial goals: help students think. Many of my arguments will borrow the findings and insights of science education research. In the last part of this paper, I will turn to some of the most influential science education research proposals and comment on their limits. If I am right, and science education today does not satisfy our most important reasons for teaching science, perhaps we should change not just our teaching strategies, but also our scientistic rationale. But that may be a difficult task.