Science Teaching of Controversial Topics (Science and Faith

Science Teac hing Topics

of Controversial (Science and Fait h)

The Problem

How do we deal with controversial topics in science? What if there is a vigorous argument about evolution vs creation in your classroom? How about the ethics of nuclear power for peace or war? What about the permissibility of fetal abortion when the fetus is known to have abnormalities? IVF? Euthanasia? Etc.

We cannot avoid reasonable differences of opinion rising in science classes. I do not think we would be treating our students fairly if we simply brushed these issues aside as not being about the science curriculum we were covering at a given time. After all the concept of the ‘teachable moment’ has been well known for considerable time. A controversy moment presents a real motivational opportunity for tackling issues of immediate interest to students, like the interest generated in science due the announcement of the Nobel prizes (Baram-Tsabari & Segev, 2015).

Possible Approaches to Controversial Topics Debate

So how could we approach such controversies, especially if they arise due to student comments and arguments in our classes? One of the most obvious approaches is perhaps the idea of a debate. After all, if we were to challenge the students involved in the two Juhani Tuovinen (or more) sides of the disagreement on a substantial topic, such as dealing with science and faith issues related to creation vs evolution, would we not doing a good job as educators getting students to investigate, research and present cogent perspectives on an important science topic? Then surely in the debate, each side could present their researched positions and critique the others’ points of view (we are talking of Bloom’s comprehension and analysis stages here)? This apparently obvious method of handling the situation does not necessarily take into account the nature of group dynamics where discussion and debates might be characterised as “emotional battlefields with members vying for recognition and affirmation from each other and from discussion leader” (Chapman, 2006). Is this the best way for building better understanding or just simply entrenching people more deeply in their existing opinions?

Switch-Side Debate

An alternative approach has been promoted by some, in the form of switch-side debate, where the participants argue over the debate period both for and against a particular viewpoint (Harrigan 2008). In this approach, each debater has to consider the best arguments for each side of the issue and present as convincing arguments as they possibly can (we are still at Bloom’s comprehension and analysis stages). This

form of approach would appear to be an improvement on a single perspective-based debate approach, where each of the participants can simply argue their own existing convictions building a more strongly entrenched personal view of the situation.

Constructive Synthesis Building Challenge

A third alternative suggests itself when we think about the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy: Synthesis. This means going beyond comprehension and analysis to relating creatively the existing knowledge structures that appear to be separate and/or different. This was suggested in an international keynote address at the Network-Based Education Conference in 2005 proposing connecting different educational theories in order to integrate educational understandings instead of simply working within favourite theoretical silos (Tuovinen, 2005). The idea here is by seeking to connect individual networks of understandings and theories, enhanced overall understandings called a metatheories could be developed. A practical example was connecting of discovery learning and cognitive load theory which led to the extension of the cognitive load theory to embrace exploration learning for learners with higher levels of expertise (Kalyuga, 2015), and the recognition of the inefficiency of inquiry learning for students with low levels of expertise in the domain they were studying (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006).

An alternative formulation of the synthesis principle is described as adversarial alignment in science where theories competing to explain given phenomena are proposed and advocated by competing groups (Ellemers et. al, 2020). This process seeks to get groups with opposing views in science to integrate incompatible results into an agreed-on new empirical research program to test competing hypotheses.

Classroom Approach to Synthesis

How might a synthesis approach be put into practice in a classroom? Let us begin with the latest statement on educational goals for Australia, the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration. It argues “Education plays a vital role in promoting the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development and wellbeing of young Australians, and in ensuring the nation’s ongoing economic prosperity and social cohesion.”

How do we synthesise in science education the ‘intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development and wellbeing’ in relation to science and religious faith, using the example of comparative views on natural world origins by creation and evolution? Let us begin with the religious perspective. According to the most recent census (2016) Australians’ religious affiliations were Christian 57.7.%, secular beliefs or other beliefs and no religious affiliation 33.3%, Islam 2.9 %, Buddhism 2.7% and Hinduism 2.1 % as the main orientations, as shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Australian Census 2016 Religious Affiliations, Australian Bureau of Statistics

The most urgent syntheses which will cover 92% of the Australian population, are between Christianity and science and between secular beliefs/no religious affiliation and science. We will just discuss the first one here. We need to deal with our students’ ‘intellectual, .., spiritual … development and wellbeing’, which should mean we help them to come to a mature understanding of the intellectual aspects of understanding of evolution as well as spiritual development and wellbeing in relation to this issue. Whatever our own philosophical perspectives on evolution, secular, agnostic, atheistic,

religious Christian, or whatever, we are to build a better understanding of the science of evolution (intellectual) and the spiritual (religious faith affirmation and mature understanding) of our students according to the most recent national Education Declaration signed by all the ministers of education in Australia.

As suggested earlier, this can be done by seeking to develop a synthesis between the scientific evolutionary understandings and Christian understandings of creation by a benevolent God. In the current public ferment on these issues, it may appear that this is an impossible mission. Certainly, many ardent atheists would argue that the development of the universe and the natural world, including ourselves, can only be seen as a mechanistic development with no creator God involved (Dawkins & Ward, 2006; McGrath, 2014). Similarly some Christians responding to these views take literalist interpretations of the creation account in the Bible to mean that evolution is not compatible with Christian faith, but despite these two opposing views being often presented as the only possible alternatives (the Conflict view of science and faith), a number of other alternative positions offer possibilities of synthesis in the science classroom.

Ian Barbour identified four main possible positions on the relationship between science and faith, including views on evolution (Barbour, 1997, 2000). They are: 1. Conflict 2. Integration 3. Dialogue 4. Independence

If we wish to promote a synthesis position on evolution and Christian faith we would be seeking to develop either an integration view or a dialogue view between science and faith.

However, we might be doubtful whether this would be an intellectually legitimate course to take? Would we be betraying our scientific credibility if we sought to move from a conflict view on evolution to an integration or a dialogue view? An interesting perspective on this conundrum might be gained from the absence or prevalence of belief in God among scientists. Can one be a credible scientist and still believe in God? A very thorough study of a significant sample of US university professors (academic staff teaching in universities) shows that 47.6% of physical and biological science staff believed in God or a higher power, 32.9% were agnostic, and 19.5% did not believe in God (see Table 1 below).

Table 1: US Scientists and Belief in God Field of Science

I don’t believe in God I don’t know whether there is a God I do believe in a higher power I believe in God

Computer Science and Engineering

16.9

15.7

10.2

53.6

Physical and Biological Sciences

19.5

32.9

3.7

43.9

No answer

3.6 0

(Gross & Simmons, 2009)

So almost half of physical and biological scientists surveyed believed in God or a higher power. What do scientists who believe in God think of evolution and creation? One of Australia’s most famous scientists, Professor Graeme Clark, says:

“Since my first studies in Anatomy in my medical course at the University of Sydney I have been convinced that the theory of evolution as enunciated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace was a beautiful explanation of how life developed on earth. In fact, one of my first scientific papers was entitled ‘Evolution and Function in the Middle Ear’.” (Worthing, 2015, p. 140).

Professor Clark gained fame as the inventor of the multichannel cochlear implant, the bionic ear, which was the first working cochlear implant to allow profoundly deaf people to gain hearing (https://graemeclarkfoundation. org/about-graeme-clark/; https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=E4d2UMhP1Ao). He is a dedicated Christian – in fact I first met him at a small church in Melbourne. In his biography he explains his faith:

“For me it has been a roller-coaster ride through joys and disappointments, successes and failures. Faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit was integral to my scientific journey. I could not have kept going without the sense that this God of love had given me the opportunity to do something to help deaf people. So I prayed about each step to take and I believe God guided the decisions to be made and provided the resources to help – both the people who joined the team and the finances as it was needed. When there was opposition I tried as best as I could to deal with it in the way Jesus did, and take the attitude, ‘If we fail, we fail,’ because God does not guarantee success.” (Worthing, 2015, p. 141).

Literature Review of Synthesis

But what about the specifics of evolution and creation synthesis process in the classroom? We could approach it by reviewing the literature of the syntheses or integration already achieved. There is a voluminous literature on the subject which demonstrates many ways serious bridges have been built between evolution and creation perspectives. A good place to start is with Denis Alexander’s book: ‘Creation or evolution? Do we have to choose?’ Alexander is an eminent biochemist and neurochemist, as well as a Christian working with the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at Cambridge University (https://www.faraday. cam.ac.uk/).

The Faraday Institute has produced numerous resources on science and Christian faith, (e.g. see Tuovinen, 2013) including on evolution and creation, and those resources are valuable for synthesising numerous fields of science with Christian faith since they were written by highly credible scientists, who are Christians (https://www.faraday.cam.ac.uk/shop/). Two other sources of easily accessed integrative literature on creation and evolution are the Australian Institute for the Study of Christianity in an Age of Science and Technology - ISCAST (https://www.iscast.org/ creation-evolution) and the US Biologos Foundation (https://biologos.org/resources) an organisation seeking to achieve synthesis and integration between science and Christian faith started by Francis Collins. Collins led the international Human Genome Mapping project (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC2931629/) and authored the book The language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief (Collins, 2006). In that book he says (p. 6):

“In my view, there is no conflict in being a rigorous scientist and a person who believes in a God who takes a personal interest in each of us. Science’s domain is to explore nature. God’s domain is in the spiritual world, a realm not possible to explore with the tools and language of science. It must be examined with the heart, the mind, and the soul – and the mind must find a way to embrace both.”

The literature review synthesis process might be put into practice as shown in Figure 2:

Establish the ground rules of the synthesis project around the controversial issue.

Assign students to working groups to investigate literature from - Faraday Institute - ISCAST - Biology

Each student reviews 1-3 key texts on possible methods of integration or synthesis.

The group creates a document and presentation of synthesis methods found.

The group reports to the class on the synthesis approaches discussed and gives their considered evaluation of the alternatives and compares these with findings of the other teams.

Figure 2: Literature Review Synthesis

Simplified Delphi Research Synthesis

Another way to tackle the creation – evolution synthesis would be a simplified Delphi research method conducted by student research teams (Osborne et al, 2003). Delphi research is basically a way of seeking expert opinions about a particularly difficult problem where no ready answers are available from the best experts (Osborne et al, 2003). There are usually a number of rounds seeking experts’ views on a particular issue, and then asking the experts to further reflecting on the information found.

This process is normally carried out by managers, group leaders, researchers or educators, but there is no reason why school students could not act as the researchers reaching out to experts about their opinions on complex problems such as ways to reach sciencefaith syntheses with respect to creation and evolution. With access to email and internet under teacher supervision it is possible to reach thought leaders quickly and then share the findings within a research team or a whole class. This gives an opportunity for the class to come to an understanding of possible ways to achieve the desired synthesis, as well as to the variety of possible responses to a real intellectual and spiritual integrations. This process is represented in Figure 3:

Establish the ground rules of the simplified Delphi research method into the issue.

Assign students to working groups to find suitable experts and their contact details on science-faith integration to approach from sources at - Faraday Institute - ISCAST - Biology

The groups design a contact message and allocate group members contact particular experts.

The students send contact messages to the experts keeping the teachers fully informed.

When the expert responses are received, the students create a combined synthesis report.

They present the report to the class comparing their evaluations of the responses and the alternative findings from the other teams.

Figure 3: Delphi Review Synthesis

Conclusion

Controversies arise in science classes on contentious topics. It is argued here that these controversies pose excellent opportunities for learning, ‘teachable moments’, where the enthusiasm of the students is intrinsically excited to undertake serious work. It is suggested that especially in relation to science – faith issues, our fundamental duty and opportunity as teachers is to help to sensitively develop multiple areas of student learning and character ranging from intellectual aspects to social, emotional, moral and spiritual dimensions.

We can do this without imposing our own views on the students especially by seeking to use synthesis methods based on literature reviews or simplified Delphi research methods. This gives us an opportunity to engage our students in significant comprehension, analysis, synthesis and evaluation of the big questions of life as they touch on science, whether they are faithscience issues, ethics of IVF, abortion, euthanasia, nuclear power, ecology or whatever.

References

1. Alexander, D. (2008). Creation or evolution?

Do we have to choose? Monarch Books. 2. Australian Education Ministers. (2019).

Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education

Declaration. Australian Governments Education Council. 3. Baram-Tsabari, A., & Segev, E. (2015). The half-life of a “teachable moment”: The case of Nobel laureates. Public Understanding of Science, 24(3), 326 – 337 https://doi. org/10.1177/0963662513491369 4. Barbour, I. G. (1997). Religion and science:

Historical and contemporary issues. HarperSanFranscisco. 5. Barbour, I. G. (2000). When science meets religion. HarperSanFranscisco. 6. Chapman, H. (2006). Towards effective groupwork in nurse education. Nurse Education

Today, 26(4), 298–303. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.nedt.2005.10.010

Collins, F. S. (2006). The language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief (No. 111). Simon and Schuster. Dawkins, R., & Ward, L. (2006). The god delusion. Houghton Mifflin Company. Ellemers, N., Fiske, S. T., Abele, A. E., Koch, A., & Yzerbyt, V. (2020). Adversarial alignment enables competing models to engage in cooperative theory building toward cumulative science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(14), 7561-7567. Gross, N., & Simmons, S. (2009). The religiosity of American college and university professors. Sociology of religion, 70(2), 101-129. Harrigan, C. (2008). Against dogmatism: A continued defense of switch side debate. Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, 29, 37-66. Kalyuga, S. (Ed.). (2015). Instructional guidance: A cognitive load perspective. IAP. Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problembased, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86. McGrath, A. E. (2014). Dawkins’ God: From The Selfish Gene to The God Delusion. John Wiley & Sons. Osborne, J., Collins, S., Ratcliffe, M., Millar, R., & Duschl, R. (2003). What “ideas‐about‐science” should be taught in school science? A Delphi study of the expert community. Journal of research in science teaching, 40(7), 692-720. Tuovinen, J. E. (2005). Advancing education in virtual and real worlds by metainnovations. Keynote Address, NBE 2005 – Network-Based Education Conference. University of Lapland, Finland. Tuovinen, J. E. (2013) Opportunities offered by the national science curriculum for exploring the relationship between science and faith, 18. Christian Perspectives on Science and Technology. ISCAST Online Journal, 9. Worthing, M. (2015). Graeme Clark: the man who invented the bionic ear. Allen & Unwin.

About the Author

Dr Juhani Tuovinen was a science and mathematics teacher in Victoria, Northern Territory and South Australia. Since then, he has been a lecturer/researcher in science, mathematics and computing education and as a researcher and academic at Monash University, and other Australian universities. He is now Professor and Dean of Education at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education, Perth.