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Scientific Literacy; Nonmajors; Scientific Enterprise; Student Projects; Visual Aids; STEM Education; Large Group Instruction; Inquiry; Learner Engagement; Data Analysis; Assignments; Cooperative Learning; Environmental Education; Teaching Methods; Sustainable Development; College Students; College Instruction; Instructional Effectiveness

Abstract:
In the past decade, systematic studies have indicated a significant regression in scientific literacy in nonscience students and students across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines in higher education. Of particular concern, evaluations of introductory lecture-based undergraduate courses have indicated deficiencies in promoting students' understanding of the role of science and how the scientific community conducts science. In an effort to introduce students to the scientific enterprise, an inquiry-based poster project was developed for a large non-majors environmental science class at a public Midwestern university. Through a term-long project, students (n = 64) worked in a collaborative means to collect and analyze data regarding sustainability topics. Students' findings were disseminated in a poster presentation during a culminating research symposium that was attended by departmental faculty and university administrators. This paper describes the development and implementation of the inquiry-based project with some preliminary data demonstrating the effectiveness of this activity in promoting student learning and engagement. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Politics of Education; Periodicals; International Organizations; Sciences; Science and Society; Science History; Political Attitudes; Scientific Enterprise; Educational Policy; Policy Analysis; Public Policy; Educational Environment; Modern History; Science Education History; Science Education

Abstract:
The Congress for Cultural Freedom is remembered as a paramount example of the "cultural cold wars." In this paper, I discuss the ways in which this powerful transnational organization sought to promote "science studies" as a distinct--and politically relevant--area of expertise, and part of the CCF broader agenda to offer a renewed framework for liberalism. By means of its Study Groups, international conferences and its periodicals, such as "Minerva," the Congress developed into an influential forum for examining the ways Big Science impacted the relations between science, society, and politics, thus constituting a semi-institutional niche for Science Studies before its professionalization within academia during the 1970s. I argue that the Congress contributed to the construction of public space in which the relations between science, society and politics were debated, and science was reconceptualized as a social activity. The vision of "science studies" the CCF-associated intellectuals promulgated was different from the science studies we know today. Yet, this alternative vision, in which the issues of science politics appeared inseparable from those of science policy, science organization, and science governance, constituted the "pre-history" of science studies today. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Foreign Countries; Periodicals; International Organizations; Measurement Techniques; Productivity; Democracy; Conflict; Foreign Policy; Public Policy; Higher Education; Policy Analysis; Science and Society; Sciences; Academic Freedom; Research Administration; Science History; Scientific Enterprise

Abstract:
When the journal "Minerva" was founded in 1962, science and higher educational issues were high on the agenda, lending impetus to the interdisciplinary field of "Science Studies" "qua" "Science Policy Studies." As government expenditures for promoting various branches of science increased dramatically on both sides of the East-West Cold War divide, some common issues regarding research management also emerged and with it an interest in closer academic interaction in the areas of history and policy of science. Through a close reading of many early issues of "Minerva" but also of its later competitor journal "Science Studies" (now called "Social Studies of Science") the paper traces the initial optimism of an academically based Science Studies dialogue across the Cold War divide and the creation in 1971 of the International Commission for Science Policy Studies as a bridging forum, one that "Minerva" strangely chose to ignore. In this light, attention is drawn to aspects of the often forgotten history of Science Studies in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern European block. Reviewed also are several early discussions that are still relevant today: e.g., regarding differing concepts of Big Science, science and democracy, autonomy in higher education and what conditions are necessary to sustain academic freedom and scientific integrity (some of Edward Shils' primary concerns). Finally, it is noted how the question of quantitative methods to measure scientific productivity lay at the heart of a "Science of Science" movement of the 1960s has re-emerged in a new form integral to the notion of a "Science of Science Policy." Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Scientific Methodology; Scientific Concepts; Philosophy; Sciences; Scientific Enterprise; Scientific Principles

Abstract:
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. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Realism; Quantum Mechanics; Theories; Philosophy; Sciences; Scientific Enterprise; Scientific Principles

Abstract:
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.

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Philosophy; Sciences; Scientific Enterprise; Scientific Principles

Abstract:
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. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Philosophy; Sciences; Scientific Enterprise; Scientific Principles; Cognitive Science; Cognitive Psychology; Rhetoric; Theory of Mind

Abstract:
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. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Ideology; Animals; Critical Theory; Postmodernism; Knowledge Economy; Laboratories; Educational Change; Science and Society; Scientific Enterprise; Semi Structured Interviews; Educational Theories; Social Theories; Activism

Abstract:
What happens to education when the potential it helps realizing in the individual works against the formal purposes of the curriculum? What happens when education becomes a vehicle for its own subversion? As a subject-forming state apparatus working on ideological speciesism, formal education is engaged in both human and animal stratification in service of the capitalist knowledge economy. This seemingly stable condition is however insecured by the animal rights activist as undercover learner and--worker, who enters education and research laboratories under false premises in order to extract the knowledge necessary to dismantle the logic of animal utility on which the scientific-educational apparatus rests. The present article is based on a semi-structured interview with an undercover worker. It draws on a synthesis of critical education and posthumanist theories to configure knowledge creation and subjectification processes in the "negative spaces" of education. The techne of undercover work includes mnemotechnical and prosthetic devices, calculation of risk, and mimetic labor. The article argues that the agenda of the undercover worker generates a multi-strained mimetic complex that composes a parasitic educational subject-assemblage redirecting scientific knowledge away from the animal stratification logic of the knowledge economy into different viral circuits; different lines of flight. It invites a rearticulation of the formal education state apparatus in more indeterminate directions, provoking scientific-educational knowledge-practices to become a catalytic impulse for their own disintegration. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Feedback (Response); Physics; Cooperation; Scientific Enterprise; Science Instruction; Student Evaluation; Evaluation Methods; Cooperative Learning; Science Tests; Formative Evaluation; Grade 9; Secondary School Science; Student Attitudes

Abstract:
The form and function of a collaborative assessment known as a "Buddy Quiz" is presented. The assessment is conducted in three successive phases over a contiguous 45-60 min class period. A portion of each quiz is completed in collaboration with one or two peers and a portion is completed without collaboration. The quiz is primarily summative and is also designed to include formative aspects. The representation in the quiz of the scientific enterprise as collaborative and individualistic is discussed. The employment of this instrument in a ninth-grade (age 15 years) conceptual physics course in an independent US secondary school is described and student feedback is presented. (Contains 2 figures, 2 footnotes, and 1 table.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Scientific Research; Universities; Scientific Enterprise; Foreign Countries; Labor Force Development; Competition; Developing Nations; Educational Policy; Proprietary Schools; Educational Trends; Trend Analysis

Abstract:
Thirty years after pro-market policies were first adopted, how best to organize Chile's scientific enterprise remains as elusive as when universities were state-run and funded. This paper explores scientific research at a for-profit university, University Andres Bello, to ask if a new mode of knowledge production is in the making and with what impacts for Chilean universities. In contrast to trends described in the North American and European university literatures, the Chilean experience to date indicates that market competition reinforces existing scientific practice, including evaluation mechanisms. Its largest impact may instead lie in challenging cultural notions of a university's rights and responsibilities, with potentially negative consequences for existing state-run and non-profit universities. These findings are important for developing countries seeking to expand research without expanding public universities or expenditures, and raise important questions regarding the specific mechanisms that mediate between a university's for-profit business model and its research agenda. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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