Portraying real science in science communication

ISSUES AND TRENDS

Maria Pilar Jimenez-Aleixandre and Jonathan Osborne, Section Coeditors

Portraying Real Sciencein Science Communication

ESTHER M. VAN DIJKDepartment of Biology, University of Hildesheim, D-31141 Hildesheim, Germany

Received 15 December 2010; revised 8 March 2011; accepted 10 March 2011

DOI 10.1002/sce.20458Published online 21 June 2011 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

ABSTRACT: In both formal and informal settings, not only science but also views onthe nature of science are communicated. Although there probably is no singular natureshared by all fields of science, in the field of science education it is commonly assumedthat on a certain level of generality there is a consensus on many features of science. Inthis paper, it will be argued that because of their focus on unifying items and their ignoringof the actual heterogeneity of science, it is questionable whether such consensus viewscan fruitfully contribute to the aim of science communication, i.e., to enhance the public’sfunctional scientific literacy. The possibilities of an alternative approach to the portrayal ofthe sciences within science communication are explored. C© 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Sci Ed 95:1086 – 1100, 2011

INTRODUCTION

People engage with science not only in formal settings during periods of their lives inwhich they enjoy an education but also in more informal or free choice settings through-out their lives, such as museums or the media. Accordingly, the development of scientificliteracy can be described as an ongoing, cumulative, in other words life-long learning pro-cess within these diverse settings (Dierking, Falk, Rennie, Anderson, & Ellenbogen, 2003;Rennie, 2007). In both formal and informal settings, not only parts of the contents of thevarious sciences but also views of the nature of science are communicated. Indeed, thedevelopment of an understanding of the nature of science is generally assumed to be an

Correspondence to: Esther M. van Dijk; e-mail: [email protected]

C© 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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important aspect of science communication with respect to the enhancement of scientificliteracy. At present, however, a general characterization of the nature of science is stilllacking and such a characterization will probably not be achievable. As philosophers ofscience increasingly emphasize (e.g., Dupre, 1993; Hacking, 1996), science is a multi-faceted enterprise for which no satisfying definition that encompasses it in its entirety islikely to be found.1 With respect to the treatment of the nature of science in the context ofscience education, which is sometimes regarded the oldest form of science communication(Russell, 2010, p. 118), this lack of general defining characteristics of science has provento be an interesting and also a problematic issue.

Although there probably is no such thing as the nature of science, in the sense of a singularnature shared by all fields of science, in the field of science education it is commonlyassumed that there is a consensus on many “lower level” points about the nature of sciencethat are accessible and relevant to secondary school students and should be used in teachingcontexts (Matthews, 1994; Smith, Lederman, Bell, McComas, & Clough, 1997; cf. Alters,1997).2 This consensus, which is supposed to exist among various experts, constitutes thebasis of many contemporary characterizations of science for teaching purposes (Lederman,Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002; Lederman, 2007; Osborne, Collins, Ratcliffe,Millar, & Duschl, 2003).

For example, two very influential science education reform documents from the UnitedStates, the Benchmarks for Science Literacy by the American Association for the Advance-ment of Science (1993) and the National Science Education Standards by the NationalResearch Council (1996), were developed through a consensus-building process that in-volved a large number of scientists, educators, and other relevant persons throughout thecountry (Good & Shymansky, 2001).3 The aspects of the nature of science that have beenemphasized in these science education documents, such as the claims that science is ten-tative and creative, form the core of the influential consensus view that was presented byLederman and colleagues and have been used as the basis for the development of a widelyused instrument for the assessment of learners’ nature of science views, the Views of Natureof Science Questionnaire (Lederman et al., 2002).

Another consensus view, presented by Osborne et al. (2003), is based on a small-scaleempirical study, which aimed to “establish empirically whether there was a measure ofconceptual agreement within the expert community for an account of the nature of sci-ence, albeit reduced, contestable, and simplified, that might be offered to school students”(p. 697). The outcome of this study was nine themes encompassing key ideas about thenature of science that were considered important enough for inclusion in the school cur-riculum, such as the claims that science uses the experimental method to test ideas and thatscience is creative.

The consensus views advocated by Lederman and colleagues and by Osborne et al. havea strong impact on current debates and research concerning science learning in formalsettings: At first sight, they seem to constitute a way to be able to say something general

1 This so-called disunity of science view will be discussed further in the section Science is a FamilyResemblance Concept.

2 It remains unclear what the authors exactly mean by a consensus on “lower-level points” (Matthews,1994, p. 8; Smith et al., 1997, p. 1102). As I understand it, there is no consensus about the fine-graineddetails of the nature of science but there is assumed to be a consensus on more general, coarse-grainedaspects of what science is.

3 However, Good and Shymansky (2003) observed that the many statements about the nature of sciencewithin the Benchmarks and the Standards seem to describe science in contrasting ways. As Good andShymansky argued, depending on one’s agenda science can be shown to be postmodern/relativist in natureor modern/realist in nature.

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about what science is, covering all of the sciences, without having to confront the problemthat science actually is disunified. The agreed upon aspects of the nature of science —tentativeness, creativity, etc.—are widely taken as a basis for knowledge development or astheoretical framework for research on the nature of science. In addition, they have a practicalimpact, for example, through the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire, which can beused for the assessment of students and teachers. Furthermore, these consensus viewsinfluence the debate about how science should be presented in informal science settings,especially in science centers and museums (Pedretti, 2002).

This paper argues that consensus views of the nature of science do not constitute usefulportrayals of what science is for the purposes of science education and public sciencecommunication and is concerned with the development of a more representative portrayalof the sciences. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the communication of science byproviding insights into how the nature of science is actually viewed from the philosophy ofscience and how consensus views, as prominent images of science for education, deviatefrom these accounts. Questions are raised as to the potential of these consensus views tocontribute to science communication.

The paper starts with a discussion of the aim that public science communication andscience education have in common, i.e., to raise the level of functional scientific literacy, inthe context of which the understanding of the nature of science has an important role (in thesection Understanding How Science Works). In the section Unifying Features of the Natureof Science, the above-mentioned consensus views are presented in more detail and somecritical points are raised concerning the unifying characteristics of science that they adoptand concerning their potential contribution to realizing the aim of science communicationdiscussed in the preceding section. In the section Science is a Family Resemblance Concept,a view of the disunity of science that is prominent within the field of philosophy of scienceis described. On this view, which seems more adequate to actual science than a consensusview, science can be conceived of as a family resemblance concept. I conclude in the lastsection by giving an outlook regarding an alternative approach to the treatment of the natureof science in science communication, taking the family resemblance conception of scienceas a starting point. In addition, the implications of such an alternative approach for scienceeducation will be discussed.

UNDERSTANDING HOW SCIENCE WORKS

From the opposition between consensus views of the nature of science (as emphasizedin science education) and views that science is disunified by its nature (as emphasized inphilosophy of science), a clear motivation follows for reconsidering how the topic of thenature of science is treated in science communication. This is not to say that all educatorshold a consensus view or that all philosophers believe that science is disunified, in thesense that there is no such thing as a singular nature shared by all fields of science atall times. However, these two different views on the nature of science raise importantquestions concerning the representative portrayal of science in science communication.At stake are both the goals and the content of science communication. Central questionsare the following: What knowledge about science is potentially relevant to the public andwhy? How can we represent these features of science in a way that science educators andcommunicators of science can use them and that corresponds with the actual natures of thevarious sciences themselves?

A question that precedes these issues, however, is why the nature of science is thought tobe an important aspect of science communication in the first place. The answer to this ques-tion depends on the goals that science communication aims to achieve. Burns, O’Connor,

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and Stocklmayer (2003) have presented a broad description of science communication,bringing together such related notions as science communication, public awareness ofscience, public understanding of science, and scientific literacy. The authors describe thecharacteristics and purposes of science communication as

the use of appropriate skills, media, activities, and dialogue to produce one or more ofthe following personal responses to science. . . : Awareness, including familiarity withnew aspects of science; Enjoyment or other affective responses, e.g. appreciating scienceas entertainment or art; Interest, as evidenced by voluntary involvement with science orits communication; Opinions, the forming, reforming, or confirming of science-relatedattitudes; Understanding of science, its content, processes, and social factors. Sciencecommunication may involve science practitioners, mediators, and other members of thegeneral public, either peer-to-peer or between groups. (p. 191)

Mediators in this context are, for example, science journalists, public science communi-cators in museums but also science educators in educational institutions. The one importantaim that science communication activities carried out by these different mediators havein common is scientific literacy (Cheng & Shi, 2008), which is described as “the idealsituation where people are aware of, interested and involved in, form opinions about, andseek to understand science” (Burns et al., 2003, p. 190). A prerequisite for the attainmentof higher levels of scientific literacy is a public understanding of science in the sense of acomprehension of the content of science, scientific processes, and social factors in science(Burns et al., 2003; Driver, Leach, Millar, & Scott, 1996). It is thus assumed that scientificliteracy depends, in part, on the public’s understanding of the nature of science.

Among the various reasons suggested as to why scientific literacy is important (seeoverviews by DeBoer, 2000; Laugksch , 2000; Linder, Ostman, & Wickman, 2007; Roberts,2007), the ability of laypeople to cope with science that has an impact on their daily livesis an important one that public science communication and science education have in com-mon. One advantage of this focus is that claims concerning the usefulness of scientificliteracy can be put to the test by an empirical analysis of specific socioscientific issues (cf.Feinstein, 2011). Within this functional approach to scientific literacy, too, an understand-ing of the nature of science is claimed to be a necessary element (Driver et al., 1996). Casestudies in which individuals who are not professionally involved with science interact withscientific knowledge in everyday life provide some support for this assumption. For exam-ple, Ryder (2001) analyzed 31 of such case studies and observed that “Overall, much of thescience knowledge relevant to individuals in the case studies was knowledge about science,i.e., knowledge about the development and use of scientific knowledge rather than scientificknowledge itself” (p. 35). These cases illustrate that knowledge about how science worksis at least as important for the enhancement of functional scientific literacy as knowledgeof the content of science (Millar & Wynne, 1988; Ryder, 2001). The implication for thecommunication of socioscientific issues is that it should be accompanied by an explicationof the relevant features of the nature of science. This view is, for example, reflected in therecent emergence of issue-based exhibitions in science centers as a way of communicat-ing socioscientific subject matter that emphasizes learning about science (Pedretti, 2002,2004).

Thus, it can be safely assumed that an understanding of how science works is an importantelement of public science communication and science education. But now another issuecomes to the fore, namely which features of the nature of science are the relevant onesin this particular context, or at least which features are more relevant and which are lessso. It seems unlikely, after all, that all will be equally relevant. In the next section, the

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various features of the nature of science that have been suggested by the consensus views,mentioned in the preceding section, and their potential contribution to the goal of sciencecommunication, the enhancement of functional scientific literacy, will be examined.

UNIFYING FEATURES OF THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

The most prominent consensus view with respect to the teaching of the nature of sciencewas brought forward by Lederman and colleagues (Lederman et al., 2002; Schwartz &Lederman, 2008). They define the nature of science as concerned only with the epis-temological assumptions underlying scientific processes, i.e., activities in the context ofempirical research. This conception of the nature of science is thus based on a distinctionbetween the nature of science on the one hand and the processes of science on the otherhand: “individuals often conflate NOS [nature of science] with science processes. . . . weconsider scientific processes to be activities related to the collection and interpretation ofdata, and the derivation of conclusions. NOS, by comparison, is concerned with the valuesand epistemological assumptions underlying these activities” (Lederman et al., 2002, p.499). However, by defining the nature of science as encompassing only the nature of scien-tific knowledge it seems that too much is excluded from this view of the nature of science.Irzik and Nola (in press), for example, argued that the aims of science, the methods, andthe methodological rules are all elements of science that should be included in learningabout the nature of science. In addition, Kelly (2008) pointed out that the social aspectsinvolved in scientific practices, such as peer review or public discussion of evidence andexplanations, are relevant for the teaching of scientific inquiry. Thus, the definition of thenature of science as advanced by Lederman and colleagues represents a too narrow viewof the nature of science by leaving out important aspects of scientific practices that arethought to be relevant to science teaching.

Lederman and colleagues depict the nature of science by means of the notions “tentative,”“empirical,” “subjective,” “creative,” and “socio/cultural embedded.” For example, theystate that

Chief among these is that scientific knowledge is subject to change. Reasons for the in-herent tentativeness of scientific knowledge stems from several other aspects, including:(a) scientific knowledge has basis in empirical evidence; (b) collection and interpretationof empirical evidence is influenced by current scientific perspectives (theory-laden ob-servations and interpretations) as well as personal subjectivity due to scientists’ values,knowledge, and prior experiences; (c) scientific knowledge is the product of human imag-ination and creativity; and (d) the direction and products of scientific investigations areinfluenced by the society and culture in which the science is conducted (socioculturalembeddedness). (Schwartz & Lederman, 2008, p. 728)

Considering these notions, it should be noted that they can also be used to characterizehuman cognition in general, as well as many other cultural practices. Everyday knowledge,for example, is tentative too, and art is creative. Thus, these notions are not specificfeatures of science, either taken separately or taken together. This is not to say that thesecharacteristics are not applicable to scientific reasoning, science is a human enterprise afterall, but these notions do not seem to capture what makes science or scientific knowledgespecial, i.e., what makes science into science.

Because of the broad applicability of the notions put forward by Lederman and col-leagues, it is not surprising to find agreement among scientists, educators etc. on thesegeneral cognitive features of science, even though the polarization of the debates withinand between the various fields that study the sciences might conceal it. These debates,

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however, are not about whether such general cognitive factors do or do not influencescience but about their nature and the actual strength of their influence (cf. Eflin, Glennan,& Reisch, 1999). Indeed, these issues are debated among the participating experts in studieson views of the nature of science (Osborne et al., 2003; Schwartz & Lederman, 2008; Wong& Hodson, 2009).

For example, with respect to the tentativeness of scientific knowledge the participatingscientists in these studies emphasized that scientific knowledge can have different levelsof certainty, thus acknowledging that general assertions about scientific knowledge beingtentative do not apply equally across all scientific knowledge. With respect to students’beliefs about scientific knowledge, Elby and Hammer (2001) argued that a sophisticatedstance toward scientific knowledge does not consist of believing blanket generalizationsabout the nature of knowledge. For example, they argued that “it would hardly be so-phisticated for students to view as ‘tentative’ the idea that the earth is round rather thanflat. By contrast, they should take a more tentative stance toward theories about dinosaurextinction” (pp. 555–556). In addition, it should be noted that the ability to distinguishbetween degrees of tentativeness of knowledge also requires insight into the differencesbetween knowledge claims in different disciplines, for example, with respect to empiricalevidence. In a recent study, Schwartz and Lederman (2008) addressed the issue of disci-pline dependence of the agreed upon nature of science features, such as tentativeness andempiricalness. However, within this study, the notion that scientific knowledge is empiricalis presented as a common denominator, as in the case of tentativeness, and the fact that thisempirical basis differs among disciplines such as paleontology and molecular biology isabstracted away (cf. Wong & Hodson, 2009, 2010).

Osborne et al. (2003) have presented another consensus view that is based on a broaderdefinition of the nature of science than the one used by Lederman and colleagues. Besidesthe nature of scientific knowledge, this definition of the nature of science encompasses themethods of science (such as posing questions), and its institutions and social practices (suchas peer review). The study of Osborne et al. provides a detailed overview of the variousaspects of the nature of science. Nine themes, encompassing key ideas about the natureof science, were rated important enough for inclusion in the school curriculum. In theirorder of importance, these themes are (1) scientific methods and critical testing (scienceuses the experimental method to test ideas); (2) creativity; (3) historical development ofscientific knowledge; (4) science and questioning (the cyclical process of asking questionsand seeking answers); (5) diversity of scientific thinking (no one method); (6) analysisand interpretation of data; (7) science and certainty (tentativeness); (8) hypothesis andprediction; and (9) cooperation and collaboration (communal and competitive activity, peerreview). This consensus view provides careful definitions of the themes, for example, takinginto account different levels of certainty of scientific knowledge and that there is no onemethod. In the definition of some themes, however, the heterogeneity of science is not takeninto account, for example, the first theme that science uses the experimental method to testideas. Since not all the sciences are experimental (consider, e.g., paleontology), the specificissues related to the nature of these disciplines are excluded from this view of the nature ofscience for science education.4

The main issue at stake with respect to the consensus view approach is that by seekingagreement on some general or simplified aspects of the nature of science that are accessible

4 It is interesting to note that the theme “no general ideas independent of science content,” which entailsthat “Students should be taught that there are no general ideas to be taught in science. Nothing can be taughtabout science independent of its content, and knowledge of the methods, institutions, and practices variesbetween sciences” (Osborne et al. 2003, p. 703) did not make it to the final selection of themes that shouldbe explicitly taught.

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to students and relevant to their daily lives, the heterogeneity of science is being obscured.Despite the sometimes more nuanced discussions or definitions of the suggested items, asin the view of Osborne et al., when using a consensus view of the nature of science, we runthe risk of limiting teaching about science to learning a list of supposedly generic items thatapply to all fields of science. However, if there is no distinctive feature that all things called“science” share, then these conceptual traits necessarily must either be too general (in thecase of Lederman’s view including nonscientific knowledge), or too narrow (in the case ofOsborne’s view excluding areas of scientific knowledge that do not fit the consensus). Inother words, the prioritized features are presented as if they were unifying features, whichis problematic when taking into account that science is disunified by its nature. This is notto say that the generic items contained in the consensus view approach do not have any rolein science; but these unifying items do not capture the various subtle ways in which thesefeatures work out within processes in the different sciences (e.g., Rudolph, 2000). Thus, theycontribute little to our understanding of the nature of science, in the sense of how scienceactually works and produces sometimes more and sometimes less reliable knowledge.5

A second issue at stake here concerns the aim of these consensus views to address andrefute misconceptions or myths (McComas, 1998) concerning the nature of science. Theaim in itself is not questioned here. To be sure, in view of the existence of certain naiveconceptions about what science is, it is important to present a more realistic image ofscience. However, in reaction to idealized epistemic principles, such as the ones held by thelogical positivists, or naive views of science, such as are often held by the general public,the influence of psychological factors is overemphasized. This is especially the case in themuch-cited work by Lederman and coworkers. For example, a widespread naıve view isthat science is objective and value free. In reaction to this idea, it is usually emphasizedthat science is a social and cultural construction and thus inherently subjective and valueladen in nature. What is achieved here is that the old naıve view that scientific knowledgeis objective is replaced by a new stereotype view that portrays scientific knowledge assubjective. However, as has been suggested by a number of philosophers, the fact that thetraditional view of objectivity cannot be upheld does not imply that all of science is just amatter of opinion, but rather that the notion of “objectivity” should be rethought (Callebaut1993; Douglas, 2007, 2009; H. E. Longino, 1990).

Douglas (2007, 2009), for example, suggested that the notion of “objectivity” is usedin different ways. Common to these different usages of objectivity is the expression oftrustworthiness, in other words to state that a claim is objective is to say that it is trustworthy.Douglas distinguished between seven notions of “objectivity,” whereby the bases for trustvary with the different applications of the terms. What she calls concordant objectivity,for example, occurs when some set of competent observers all concur on a particularobservation or knowledge claim. Douglas (2009, p. 117) observed further that

In describing objectivity in this way, it will become clear that claiming something isobjective is not an absolute statement. For all of the bases for objectivity . . . , there aredegrees of objectivity, that is, there can be more or less of it. . . . Objectivity is not an on oroff property.

This diversified notion of objectivity provides us with an understanding of how differentscientific processes together produce knowledge that is sometimes more and sometimes

5 It is important to note that the problem pointed out here is not that the consensus view provides anincomplete picture of science and that more elements need to be included (a point recently made by Allchin,2011; see the section An Alternative Approach) but that it provides a distorted view by making sciencelook too much like a homogeneous phenomenon.

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less reliable. This does not mean that the more objective claims are absolutely right,but it assures us that the best we can do is indeed being done (Douglas, 2009, p. 117).With respect to science communication, this example suggests that instead of makinggeneralizing statements that science is subjective rather than objective, tentative rather thancertain, individually or socially constructed, rather than discovered, a more subtle accountof scientific knowledge is called for that shows what aspects of the scientific process leadto these contrasting characterizations of science.

In this section, it has been argued that the consensus view approach does not provide uswith a representative image of science and that the different ways in which the presupposedlygeneric aspects of the nature of science actually work out within the various sciencesremain hidden. It is therefore unclear how these unifying aspects—tentativeness, creativity,etc.—can provide insights into how science actually produces knowledge. Consequently,it is doubtful whether these views will enable people to critically engage with scientificknowledge and the social consequences that science has. This implies that the potentialcontribution of the aforementioned consensus views to the goal of science communicationis questionable. Furthermore, it should be noted that the issues raised above do not onlyconcern scientific knowledge in everyday life but also the understanding of science ingeneral. Science education aims to teach science as an important part of human culture andas a preparation for future employment, next to science that is relevant for everyday life.To achieve such a general understanding of science, it is assumed that an understandingof the nature of science is required, especially because it is believed that knowledge aboutthe nature of science also has a role in facilitating the learning of scientific contents andinquiry (Driver et al., 1996). The preceding discussion indicates the need to develop adifferent conception of the nature of science that is applicable within the field of sciencecommunication and that represents the diversity of real science.

SCIENCE IS A FAMILY RESEMBLANCE CONCEPT

Describing general methodological features of science that are purportedly exhibitedby all fields of science at all times is what philosophers of science have attempted to dofor a long time. For example, the influential twentieth-century philosopher Karl Poppersuggested as methodological criterion for science that any scientific theory should befalsifiable (1959). However, it turned out that this normative goal of philosophy of scienceto describe one single rational methodology for all sciences could not be achieved (e.g.,Okasha, 2002). At present, philosophers of science have generally come to the conclusionthat there is no such thing as the nature of science, in the sense of a singular nature sharedby all fields of science at all times (Hull, 1988, p. 25). This view is perhaps expressedmost strikingly by philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend’s slogan that “anything goes”(Feyerabend, 1975, p. 28). Moreover, with respect to biology, Leonelli (2009, p. 190)observes that it “is growing increasingly disunified. Biological research is fragmented intocountless epistemic cultures, each with its own terminologies, research interests, practices,experimental instruments, measurement tools, styles of reasoning, journals, and venues.”

Today, a prominent view in the philosophy of science holds that “science” is best seen asa family resemblance concept (e.g., Eflin et al., 1999). Wittgenstein (1953/2001, §67) usedthe analogy of a thread to illustrate what he called family resemblance: “as in spinning athread we twist fibre on fibre. And the strength of the thread resides not in the fact thatsome one fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibres.” Ina similar way, the view of “science” as family resemblance concept entails that sciencecan only be described by means of a loose cluster of features that many sciences share,whereas none of these features is present within all scientific disciplines and a particular

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scientific discipline may lack any of them (Dupre, 1993, p. 10; Eflin et al., 1999; Hacking,1996; Okasha, 2002). In accordance with the alleged disunity of science, philosophy ofscience turned its attention to general issues on a more local level, for example, the natureof explanations in evolutionary biology rather than the nature of explanations simpliciter,and the philosophies of the special sciences now focus on specific features of the differentscientific disciplines, such as classification in biology (Okasha, 2002; see also Callebaut,1993). Instead of prescribing how science ought to work, the philosophy of science turnedits attention to historical and empirical informed descriptions of how science actually worksin its various manifestations (Callebaut, 1993; Reydon & Hoyningen-Huene, 2011).

Furthermore, the family resemblance view of science implies that no general criteriafor demarcating science from nonscience or pseudoscience are available (Dupre, 1993;Laudan, 1996). For Popper (1959) “the demarcation problem,” as he named it, was one ofthe central problems of philosophy of science. In recent decades, however, Nickles (2005,p. 189) observed

the problem of demarcation has lost visibility in philosophical circles even as science andtechnology have gained unparalleled authority and even though creationists and variouspostmodernist groups now increasingly challenge that authority, not to mention the legaland political difficulties in identifying “sound science.”

In the face of the high status of science and technology in society today, the distinctionbetween scientific claims and knowledge claims that only pretend to be scientific is still anissue of high practical importance (Dupre, 1993, p. 242; Hansson, 2008; Nickles, 2005).For a critical appraisal of knowledge claims that influence society, it is essential to knowwhat the differences are between science and pseudoscience. However, there is no singledivision between science and pseudoscience: Pseudosciences may deviate from the sciencesin many different ways. In contrast to Popper’s single criterion of falsifiability, other authorsworking on the demarcation problem, for example, philosophers active in the debate oncreationism, have proposed multiple criteria for demarcation instead of just one (Hansson,2008; Kitcher, 1982; Ruse, 1996, 2005).

These views of science will have to be taken into account if we aim at a more representa-tive portrayal of the nature of science in science communication. Irzik and Nola (in press)recently presented a family resemblance approach to the nature of science for education.Their description of the nature of science is based on four categories: activities, aims andvalues, methodologies and methodological rules, and products. Each category contains alist of characteristics, which together form a family resemblance set. For example, observ-ing, experimenting, collecting, and classifying of data all are activities of science and thuspart of this family resemblance set. A subset of all the elements mentioned under all fourcategories makes up the characterization for an individual science.

AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH

From the state of affairs sketched above, it follows that a different approach towardthe portrayal of the sciences for science communication is called for. Such an alternativeapproach could be to limit claims about the nature of science to case studies on the nature ofparticular scientific fields. These case studies can then be used to describe the characteristicfeatures of a scientific discipline and to assess their contribution to the understanding ofspecific socioscientific issues related to this particular discipline. Such case studies from the

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biological sciences could be on human genetics concerning genetic testing, evolutionary bi-ology concerning the evolution/creation controversy, and concerning conservation biologyand the loss of biodiversity. In part, the question what the relevant features for understandingthese socioscientific issues are is an empirical question. Therefore, an empirical analysis ofthe scientific aspects of socioscientific issues as presented for instance in the media, muse-ums, and textbooks is one important element of the case-based approach that is suggestedhere. In addition, such an analysis is to be grounded in the science studies literature andcan be further substantiated by the views of the scientists that work in a particular fieldof science. In this way, such case studies can be used to develop characteristic “natures ofscience” of particular fields of science that are especially relevant for a critical appraisal ofrelated socioscientific issues.

However, such case studies by themselves do not provide public science communicatorsand science educators with an overview of differences and similarities between variousscientific disciplines that represents the disunity of science. For example, in the case ofevolutionary biology, the rule of methodological naturalism that limits science to attemptingto explain natural phenomena using only natural causes is one of the essential features ofnatural science and also an important demarcation criterion between evolutionary scienceand the so-called creation science or intelligent design (which does not endorse this rule—see Ruse, 2001). Another relevant feature of this particular field of work concerns thehistorical nature of evolutionary theory, which makes the experimental testing of hypothesesabout the evolution of life impossible (Van Dijk & Kattmann, 2009). These features clearlyshow how evolutionary biology differs from other natural sciences and from pseudoscience,and why knowledge claims in evolutionary biology often have a higher degree of uncertaintythan those in other sciences. If the aim is to provide an account of the nature of sciencefor science communication that goes beyond a collection of single case studies, then somekind of framework for organizing the various kinds of relevant features of science isneeded. This is where the family resemblance view comes into play: Taking the familyresemblance conception of science as a starting point may yield an alternative approach tothe communication of images of science.

The characterization of the nature of individual sciences based upon family resemblancesets as suggested by Irzik and Nola (in press) provides a useful starting point for our thinkingabout ways to represent the disunified nature of science for science communication. Thisapproach does justice to the differences among scientific disciplines, and it is basicallyphilosophically neutral (although the lack of certain kinds of features might give anotherimpression, which will be discussed below). It is neutral in the sense that we do not haveto choose between stereotypes of science, such as the views that science is subjectiveor objective. This approach enables us to show which aspects of science might supportdifferent views of what science is without the need to commit ourselves to any view.

Nonetheless, an important point of critique (among others that will be discussed below)concerns the goal for which the family resemblance approach has been developed. Irzik andNola (in press) refer to the consensus in the field of science education that students shouldlearn something about the nature of science, without specifying what might be important forstudents and to what end. Irzik and Nola’s account thus is underdeveloped with respect toconnecting the family resemblance view of science to the specific aims of science educationand public science communication. Determining the relevant features of science for people’scritical engagement with scientific knowledge in society is partly an empirical question,as has already been discussed above. The development of a framework that represents thedisunity of science should therefore be preceded by a case-based treatment of the differentscientific disciplines and related socioscientific issues to reveal relevant aspects of the natureof science specific to the various scientific disciplines.

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Outlook

Questions have been raised as to the potential of the consensus view approach to provideuseful portrayals of what science is for the purposes of science education and publicscience communication. The reason for assuming that the unifying features of science thatresult from a consensus view approach contribute little to our understanding of the nature ofscience is that they are either not specific to science but apply to human cognition in general,or are only typical for certain parts of science and not for science in general. Based on theissues that have been raised, a potential alternative approach has been sketched that is aimedat a more representative portrayal of the nature of science in science communication. Thisapproach consists of a case-based treatment of the socioscientific issues that occur in relationto specific scientific disciplines that is intended to reveal relevant aspects of the natures ofscience for science communication. The various case studies together form an empiricalbasis for the development of a framework that adequately represents the differences andsimilarities between the characterizations of the natures of individual sciences.

In comparison to a consensus view approach, this case-based treatment offers a wayto reveal discipline-specific aspects that remain hidden under the unifying items of theconsensus views. Such case studies can show how these features actually work out inscientific disciplines and what their relevance is with respect to certain actual socioscientificissues. Consider, for example, the hypothetico-deductive method in the specific context ofgenetics, such as the Human Genome Project (HGP), and the related socioscientific issueof Direct-To-Consumer genetic testing (DTC). The hypothetico-deductive method, i.e.,hypotheses-driven science, is often considered to constitute paradigmatic science. However,not all science is hypotheses driven. For example, the HGP represents an example of data-driven research whereby the goal is to map the human genome without formulating aspecific hypothesis beforehand. The rise of data-driven research in genomics and relatedfields of science has stimulated discussion on scientific methodology (Nature Methods,2009). Philosophers of science and scientists argue that data-driven research is not analternative to hypothesis-driven science but that both approaches have complementaryroles within science in the so-called postgenomic era (Burian, 2007; Kell & Oliver, 2003).

Relevant issues for science communication related to data-driven science can be shownby means of the debate on DTC genetic testing. DTC encompasses commercial test productsthat can be used to estimate an individual’s risk to develop a number of common complexdiseases, such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease, based on the results of genome-wideassociation studies (GWAS). GWAS is a data-driven research methodology that is used toidentify some of the genetic factors more common among individuals with a certain disease.The rapid translation of the results of GWAS into a commercial test product offered directlyto consumers over the Internet raises a number of issues (Kuehn, 2008; Wright & Kroese,2010). One of these concerns the usefulness for the individual consumer of tests basedon GWAS that make predictions concerning the individual’s risk of developing a disease.Because the relation between specific genetic variants and the development of complexdiseases is not clear, the predictive value of these tests is often limited. A second issueconcerns the capability of the public to understand the scientific reasoning behind thesetests, such as the difference between a statistical correlation and a causal correlation.

Furthermore, case studies can be used to reveal relevant aspects of the nature of sci-ence that may be missing from the consensus views altogether (e.g., Allchin, 2011; Wong,Hodson, Kwan, & Yung, 2009). Allchin (2011, p. 524) observes that “Short lists of NOSfeatures should be recognized as inherently incomplete and insufficient for functionalscientific literacy.” He suggests that relevant elements of the nature of science can be re-vealed by an analysis of science articles in a major newspaper concerning topics such as

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mammogram recommendations. The resulting inventory comprises “a set of dimensionsabout how reliability is achieved” in scientific practice. For example, the dimension obser-vations and reasoning includes the item “role of probability in inference” that has a role inthe case of mammogram recommendations. This approach offers a more inclusive accountof the nature of science than the consensus view approach, which Allchin calls “Wholescience.” In contrast, the approach that is sketched here starts from the view that scienceis a family resemblance concept and that the various generic items of the dimensions ofreliability can be attributed to specific fields of science to develop characterization of thenature of these fields. For the further development of this discipline-specific approach,Allchin’s study provides a range of categories that are, in addition to the ones suggested byIrzik and Nola, potentially relevant for the development of a framework that represents thedisunity of science.

Irzik and Nola’s (in press) classification of the similarities and differences among scien-tific disciplines into four categories, (1) activities, (2) aims and values, (3) methodologiesand methodological rules, and (4) products has a number of limitations that calls for furtherdevelopment. A first point concerns the lack of attention for psychological characteristicsof scientists and the social features of science. Contemporary philosophers of science andother scholars that study science, however, do include psychological and sociological as-pects in descriptive and explanatory accounts of scientific activity (e.g., Carruthers, Stich,& Siegal, 2004; Giere, 1992; Godfrey-Smith, 2003; H. Longino, 2008; Nersessian, 2008;Ziman, 2000). This implies that for the development of a framework that represents thedisunity of science more categories could be added to the four that have been suggested byIrzik and Nola.

A second point concerns the aims and values category that Irzik and Nola described. Theyfocus on cognitive values within science. However, also social and ethical values have arole in science. The direct influence of these social and ethical values is most apparent in thechoice of scientific projects, such as curing cancer or saving biodiversity (Douglas, 2009).Conservation biology, for example, is based on the assumption that “[b]iotic diversity hasintrinsic value, irrespective of its instrumental or utilitarian value” (Soule, 1985), whichinfluences debates within society concerning the extinction of species. The debate on therole of values in science thus implies that more subcategories should be added to theaims and values category. A clear understanding of the roles of values in science enablesus to decide whether their role is acceptable, which can be assumed to be an importantelement of functional scientific literacy. For example, values have an unacceptable roleif the interpretation of research results is influenced by the wishes of the funding agency(Douglas, 2009).

Implications for Science Education

The consensus view approach offers teachers a priority list of generic features of thenature of science that can be used to teach one particular view of science. At first sight,such a limited priority list appears to be practical for the development of curricula and as-sessment tasks. However, the contribution of such lists to the development of a sophisticatedunderstanding of how science produces reliable knowledge is questionable. In contrast, theapproach that was sketched above can offer teachers a much more diversified view ofthe natures of science, which can be used to raise questions in the classroom concerningthe nature of the various practices called “science.”

With respect to the goal of science education to enhance functional scientific literacy,the case studies form authentic contexts that can be used to develop an understanding ofthe nature of science. For example, Wong et al. (2009, p. 98) described how they “made

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use of the familiar and well-documented story of SARS and scientists’ descriptions of theirwork and experience during the SARS epidemics to develop an instructional package forexplicitly teaching NOS.” In addition to the case studies, the framework that representsthe characterizations of natures of science can be used by science educators to pointout important differences between knowledge claims in their teaching, for example, theimplications of data-driven science in comparison to hypothesis-driven science.

With respect to another important goal of science education, namely to engage students inscientific inquiry, the framework could be useful to reflect on the different ways that scienceworks and why, to develop the students’ understanding of scientific inquiry. Erduran (2007),for example, suggests the use of argumentation as an inquiry strategy to communicatedomain-specific aspects of chemistry such as the specific nature of chemical laws (incomparison to laws of physics) in chemistry education. Argumentation in the context ofthe approach presented here could focus on characteristic features of competing knowledgeclaims that have an impact on society, such as methodological naturalism or the role ofvalues in science.

I would like to thank Thomas Reydon and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments andsuggestions.

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Portraying real science in science communication