TEACHING AND THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

TEACHING AND THE NATURE OF SCIENCEAkhmad Musyafak 4201409003

Diah Isnaini P. 4201409012

Nevy Nurul H. 4201409080

TEACHING AND THE NATURE OF SCIENCETEACHING AND THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

EDUCATIONAL PURPOSEIn 1918 the Commision On the Reorganization

of secondary Education proposed a unity around that is called the “seven cardinal objectives”

1. Health2. Command of the fundamental thinking

processes3. Worhty home membership4. Vocational competence5. Effective citizenship6. Worthy use of leisure time7. Ethical character


With respect to attaining the seven cardinal objectives, the commision argued that the objectives all depended on the development of the rational powers, that is the ability to think:“Health, for example, depend upon a reasoned awarenes of the value of mental and physical fitness...(it) requires that the individual understand the connection among health, nutrition, activity and environment.effective citizenship is impossible without the ability to think...(f)irshand experience is no longer an adequate basis for judgment. He must have in addition the intellectual means to study events, to relate his values to them, and to makewise decisions as to his own actions”


In1966 the educational policies commision, recognizing the key role that could be played by science education in developing the ability to think, published a second document, education and the spirit of science, which emphasized science not co much as a body of accumulated knowledge but as a way of thinking, a spirit of rational inquiry driven by a belief in its efficiency and by a restless curiosity to know and to understand.


Although the commision recognized that no scientist may fully exemplify the spirit of science and that no work may be completely objective, it is clear that the following key values underie science as an enterprise :

1. longing to know and understand 2. questioning all thing 3. searching for data and their meaning 4. Demanding verification 5. respecting logic 6. considering the premises 7. considering the consequences


What is science? Is there one scientific method? what is scientific thinking? How do scientist construct knowledge?


THE NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC THINKING

Creating HypothesesThe American College Dictionary (Barnhat,1953) defines the word hypothesis as follows“a proposition (or set propositions) proposed as an axplanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena”

Other dictionary defineshypothesis is a proposed explanation, a tentative cause for some spesific observation or related observation.


Creating hypothesis does require background information and an element of guessing ,

but not all educated guesses are hypothesis


Testing Hypothesis

The most basic test of any hypothesis (the non observable) is that can in turn be checked with experience (the observable). As long as experience is consistent with those predictions, the hypothesis has been supported. When experience is not consistent with predictions, the hypothesis has not been supported. It would be a mistake, however, to claim that consistency or lack of consistency of predictions with experience proves the truth or falsity of a hypothesis.


WHY HYPOTHESIS ARE NEITHER PROVEN NOR DISPROVEN

The reason that supportive evidence does not prove a hypothesis correct is simply because hypothesis are potentially unlimited in number, and any two or more may give rise to the same prediction.

The reason why hypothesis not disproven because the complexity of natural phenomena. In other words, we can never control all of variables that might have influenced the outcome.


WHY HYPOTHESIS ARE NEITHER PROVEN NOR DISPROVEN

Charles Darwin’s Changing Worldview from 1831-1838 <1832 : the creator (C) made an organic world (O) and a physical world

(P). 1832-1834 : the physical world undergoes continuous change, A logical

contradiction is implied that induces a state of disequilibrium. 1835 : Activities of organisms contribute to change in the physical world. 1836- 1837 : Change in the physical world imply changes in organic

world if adaptation is to be maintained. >1838 : The physical and organic worlds interact continuosly and induce

reciprocal change to maintain adaptations.


THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THEORIES. A LOOK AT THE WORK OF CHARLES DARWIN

By what process did Darwin come to create the theory of natural selection?

In September 1838, Darwin read Thomas Malthus’s Essay on Population. Darwin saw in Malthus’s writing a key idea that he could borrow and use to explain evolution. That key idea was that artificial selection of domesticated plants and animals was analogous to what presumably occurs in nature and could account for a change or evolution of species.

The example of Darwin’s use of the analogous process of artificial selection suggests that analogy plays a central role in theory creation.

The process of the borrowing of old ideas and applying them in new situations is known as abduction.


THE USE OF ANALOGY

A theory is a set of basic premises or fundamental assumptions that function together to explain a class set of related phenomena.

The American College Dictionary defines theory as a coherent group of general proposition used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena.


THE NATURE OF THEORIES

Darwin proposed the following six general proposition ( postulates) to explain how organisms evolve:

Enormous spans of time are available for gradual geological and biological change.

Given favorable conditions, populations of organisms are capable of exceedingly rapid growth.

Populations seldom reach their potential growth rate because of restricting environmental factors termed limiting factors.

There is variation among the characteristic of individual within a species.

Some of the characteristic that contribute to this variation are heritable.

Individuals with certain characteristic have a better chance of surviving and reproducing than individuals with other characteristics.


In 1748 English clergyman John Needham reported experimental results that seemed to show that life can arise spontaneously from nonliving matter.

Theory of spontaneous generation consisted essentially of three postulates:Living things arise spontaneously form nonliving materials when a special vital force acts on the nonliving materialDifferent sort of nonliving materials give rise to different sorts of organismsSpontaneous generation has occurred in the past and still occurs today


HOW ARE THEORIES TESTED? THE CASE OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION

Lazzaro Spallanzani: Fierce heat destroys the vital force Elastic air is necessary for the vital force to workLouis pasteur:“the great interest of this method is that it proves

without doubt that the origin of life, in infusions which have been boiled, a rises uniquely from the solid particles which are suspended in the air”.


How ,then, are theories tested?Of course, is precisely as stated previously: by generating and

testing predictions derived from the theory’s basic postulates. The examples of the biogenesis vs spontaneous generation

controversy tells us that the process is not simple, primarily for two reason:

It may be difficult to imagine ways of actually and convincingly testing the basic postulates

Even if apparantely crucial tests are generated, advocates of the theory may be able to generate additional postulates that will render these newer tests less than crucial.


The difference between religion and science: Religion asks one to believe based on faith.

Science asks one to believe based on the evaluation of alternative,evidence,and reason.

A religion knows the truth before natured is consulted.


SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Science is a process of the discovery of the nature of things via observation?

The prevailing theory concerning the nature of the matter from the days well before the birth of christ was the nature consisted of four fundamental subtances: earth, fire, air, and water.

By the eighteenth century, most chemists explained this phenomenon by assuming that combustible subtances, such as a candle, consist of a base material (the ancients’ earth) plus something akin to the ancients’ fire, which by that time had acquired the name phlogiston.


THE ROLE OF OBSERVATION IN SCIENCE: THE “CONSTRUCTION” OF OXYGEN

In conclusion, we see that the invention on the conceptual system describing oxygen’s role in combustion took place in basically three phase:

1.Which extended from the days of the ancient Greeks to well into the eighteenth century, involved exploration of a variety of phenomena, such as the burning of candles, phosphorus, and mercury, ant the interpretation of thus exploration in term of concepts such as phlogiston and dephlogisticated air.

2.The second key phase occurred when it became increasingly clear to Lavoisier during the 1770s that the old conceptual system was in error. In his view, the combustion process produced a new gas, which was given the name oxygen.


THANK’S 4 U’R ATTENTION

presented by:Group 1


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TEACHING AND THE NATURE OF SCIENCE