Interrogating Truth(s) With Scientific Consensus: A "Critical Scrutiny" of Science Education

• In Event: Beyond the Modern: The Ethical Need to Make Matter Matter for Truth in Science Education

Abstract

The past few years have been highlighted by a global pandemic and massive political efforts to limit and obscure important information based in scientific consensus and in favor of democracy, human rights, and responding to climate change. Amidst such obscuring of information one thing that has become clear is how much a willful ignorance to truths and scientific literacy has led to deadly levels of human suffering and environmental degradation. Now, more than ever as educational researchers in pursuit of truths and centering the importance of valuing diverse cultural knowledge and scientific literacy, it is crucial that educational researchers closely examine the often (un)identified cultural assumptions embedded in the limited modernist views of human-centric thought. In this paper, the author seeks to apply a “critical scrutiny of the messy knowledge forms and action moves (or lack thereof)” (Pedersen, 2011, p. 67) and embrace the uncertainties that emerge from rejecting “either/or” approaches that too often result in reproducing a problematic culture/nature dualistic binary and proposes harmony among discord with diverse critical approaches through working together toward better understanding and defining a multispecies framework for education and education research.
Drawing from a critical posthumanist approach (Pederson, 2011), this paper brings posthumanist philosophy (Haraway, 2008; Wolfe, 2003, 2010) and critical animal studies (Best, 2009; Nocella et al. 2014; Pedersen, 2010; 2011; Twine, 2010; 2012) together with ecological theories in ecofeminisms (Code, 2006; Plumwood, 1993, 2002; Warren, 1990, 2000) and ecojustice projects (Authors, 2015, 2016a; 2016b; Bowers, 2001; Kahn, 2010; Martusewicz et al., 2021), to explore the ways ecocritical science and social studies teacher educators are working together to address the relationship between anthropocentrism and other manifestations of unjust suffering rooted in forms of domination. Aligned with the conference call to interrogate consequential education research in pursuit of truth, the paper examines how, critical educational researchers in teacher education, can foster and develop educational spaces where there is an emphasis on seeking ways to learn from life-sustaining ontologies, while also working to forget or leave behind epistemologies that distance us from recognizing our dependencies on one another, the oceans, the land, and all of the more-than-human world (Abram, 1996). Taking seriously the concept of an ecological intelligence (e.g., Bateson, 1972; 2002; Bowers, 2010, 2011, 2016; Code, 2006), the author of this paper argues that the breaking down of such binaries (e.g. human/nonhuman) is a kind of critical posthumanist philosophical project of re-envisioning educational worlds that exposes (im)possibilities (Barad, 2007) to open up rather than enclose spaces of science education. This is especially important as we consider a future in which environmental degradation continues to fuel phenomenon such as pandemics that wreak havoc on everyone, but especially those who are most marginalized by race, class, geography, etc. This article advances a critical posthumanist scholarly understanding and reconceptualization of science education that emphasizes the importance of scientific consensus that holds value in multiple perspectives and furthermore highlights how messy and often contentious truths is an important part of an evolving scientific knowledge for a changing world.

Author

• John J. Lupinacci, Washington State University
  Presenting Author