Word of the day

Bibesy – a too earnest desire for drink; an excessively fervent wish to drink.

Sowell says

When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) July 10, 2023

Rose Hipkins and that ‘refreshed’ curriculum

Greg Dawes is at The Common Room writing about Rose Hipkins and the ‘refreshed’ science curriculum :

The PM’s mother appears to believe the teaching of science should have a political dimension.

As a philosopher, I’ve been following closely the debate regarding the ‘refreshed’ science curriculum in New Zealand schools. What interests me is the understanding of science that underlies the new curriculum. This is not clearly expressed in what I have seen of the Ministry’s proposals. But one of the most vigorous advocates of the new curriculum has been Rosemary (Rose) Hipkins, the mother of our Prime Minister, who in 2019 was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to science education. So I have turned to Hipkins’ writings, particularly her 2006 PhD thesis, which sets out a programme very similar to the one being proposed.

The question addressed by Hipkins’ thesis is how to teach students about ‘the nature of science’. (In a university context we call this ‘the philosophy of science’.) Her understanding of the nature of science is strongly influenced by writers in the field known as ‘Science and Technology Studies’ (STS). These writers focus on the day-to-day practice of science and the social and political contexts in which this practice is carried out. One of the most interesting of these writers was the late Bruno Latour. Latour’s work is extensively cited in Hipkins’ thesis and she credits it as her primary starting point. So if we want to understand the conception of science that underlies the new curriculum, it is a good place to begin.

Latour is best known for what is called ‘actor-network theory’. According to this theory, the practice of science is not a purely intellectual endeavour, but is sustained by ‘networks’. These networks are made up of human beings, the objects with which they are interacting, and the social and political institutions of the surrounding society. Latour is also an advocate of a ‘relational ontology’, in which objects do not pre-exist the relations into which they enter. Things are what they are – they have a particular identity – only because of those relations. Coupling his actor-network theory with a relational ontology, Latour suggests that the practice of science helps to create the objects it investigates. When scientists studying the body of Ramses II claimed that the Pharaoh had died of tuberculosis, Latour suggested this could not be true, since the scientific practices that co-create the tuberculosis bacterium did not exist in ancient Egypt.

Latour was much criticized for that suggestion and he later admitted it may have gone too far. (Latour’s career was marked by outrageous claims, which he would later qualify.) But remarks like this show how easily Latour’s ‘actor-network’ understanding of science can go off the rails. It is in particular danger of going off the rails when it comes to the question of science and politics. The practice of science does involve interactions between people, objects, and institutions. Some of the institutions involved are political. So it is not surprising that politics can play a role in science, even to the point of influencing its theories. (To take a famous example, Darwin’s account of competition in the natural world may be influenced by the competitive spirit of British capitalism.) But this need not mean, as Latour once remarked, that science is merely ‘politics pursued by other means’. Taken at face value, this would suggest that science is not an attempt to understand our world; it is merely one of the arenas in which humans engage in political struggles.

Hipkins does not explicitly endorse this view, but she appears to believe that the teaching of science should have a political dimension. Using one of Latour’s distinctions, Hipkins argues that science teaching should begin with ‘matters of concern’ rather than ‘matters of fact’. (The four subject areas of the proposed new curriculum – earth science, biodiversity, the food-energy-water nexus, and infectious diseases – are matters of concern.) A traditional approach to science teaching would begin with matters of fact and leave matters of concern for discussion outside the science classroom. With regard to climate change, for instance, it would help students understand the science that studies the climate, while setting aside the question of what we should do. But if science teachers start with matters of concern, they will be faced immediately with ethical and political judgements, a consequence Hipkins seems to welcome. She suggests, for instance, that the learning of science should give rise to political action. As she writes, it is not what can be tested by an exam, but ‘what students do in the world’ that is the ultimate test of their learning.

Hipkins backs this up with the idea of ‘ontological politics’, which comes from the work of John Law. Latour’s theory is an instance of what Hipkins calls a ‘participatory epistemology’, which holds that we participate in creating the objects of our knowledge. But if this is true, questions about scientific practice are not merely questions about discovering how the world is. They are questions about ‘what there should be in the world, about politics or ethics’. In Hipkins’ words, science ‘should work towards making some versions of reality more “real” while eroding others’. It follows that the practice of science is inseparable from politics; science apparently is politics pursued by other means.

What are we to make of these ideas? I would certainly include them in a philosophy of science course. But I would also include the criticisms that have been made of them. Some criticisms relate to the idea that the practice of science co-creates the objects it studies. It is easy to see that social science can shape its objects. As the philosopher Ian Hacking has argued, human behaviour is very susceptible to ‘feedback effects’. The very naming and describing of a psychological condition, for instance, can lead people to act it out. But the natural world – the world studied by physics and chemistry – is more resistant to our practices. One can also criticize Latour’s focus on matters of concern. The seventeenth-century founders of modern science chose to focus exclusively on matters of fact, regarding ethical, political, and religious debates as beyond the scope of their inquiries. This enabled individuals of widely differing ethical, political, and religious views to work together. One could argue that focusing on matters of concern risks fracturing the scientific community (or a school science class) along political lines.

Hipkins’ approach to science education owes something to the tradition of ‘critical theory’, developed by the philosophers of the Frankfurt School. One of the founding texts of this movement was Max Horkheimer’s essay contrasting ‘traditional theory’ and ‘critical theory’. Traditional theory is marked by a detachment from politics and a separation of knowing subject and known object, while critical theory recognizes the knower’s involvement in the historical process and seeks to reshape society. But Horkheimer was not advocating that we replace a detached science with a politically committed one. In his view, traditional science would remain important, for it plays an essential role in contributing to our knowledge of both the natural world and society. Latour’s view of science, by way of contrast, can be understood as collapsing science into politics.

The problem with Hipkins’ thesis is criticisms of this kind are barely mentioned. A particular view of science is presented as though it were established and uncontroversial. It is this that really worries me. Teachers could, in principle, do in high schools what I do at the university. They could present students with a variety of views about the nature of science, of which Latour’s would be only one. But school students barely have time to learn the basic principles of science, without grappling with difficult philosophical questions. Nor are most science teachers trained to deal with them. What worries me is that the ‘refreshed’ curriculum will not so much discuss this controversial view of science, as take it for granted, embedding it in the topics it covers and questions it asks. This really would be a tragedy. Inculcating controversial views in ways that do not allow them to be discussed is indoctrination, not education.

Greg Dawes has published extensively on relations between science and religion.  He teaches philosophy at the University of Otago.

You can receive pieces like this by subscribing to The Common Room

Why give a damn?

Paula Bennett is at The Common Room asking why should you give a damn?

Are you a spectator or a participant? Do you get involved? Do you give a damn?

I never wanted to merely be an observer of other people doing things. I wanted to get involved. I had the Kiwi attitude of “give it a go”. I was no good at sports, so I wasn’t going to be any good at participating in team sports. I found my participation in my former career in politics. I didn’t want to sit on the sidelines and criticise other people. I wanted to get in there and try and make a difference.

This year we need everyone to get involved. It is election year. At the last election around 82% of eligible people voted. We can do better than that.

Too often, I hear from people who don’t vote or don’t give any thought into their vote. 

We have one of the best democracies in the world. I know, far from perfect, but there are still countries that are undemocratic. Your vote is equal to mine. When it comes to casting our vote we are all equal. 

I hear people say that they don’t think their one vote will count. Well, it does. I once won my seat by 9 votes. Literally, 9 people decided whether it was me or Carmel Sepuloni who would be their local MP. Their vote counted.

I hope that I have convinced you to vote. Now you have to think about how you will vote. 

There is so much PR spin on everything that a government or potential government does that it is hard to know what to listen to and what to believe. Often more thought goes into what to call a policy announcement than the actual policy itself – Three Waters, or Ten Waters would be a great example of that.

So what’s important to you? Is it education? Health? Infrastructure or the cost of living? Do you worry about crime spiralling out of control?  For me, it is all of that and more. It’s about having a New Zealand where people have opportunities to get ahead. Where we are optimistic about the future and I get really passionate about the Kiwi sense of fairness. 

More and more, we are becoming a divided country. Whether it is the haves and have-nots. Those that attend school regularly and those that don’t. A health system that now actively encourages people to get private healthcare because the public system can’t cope. That’s not fair. Might not be fair to those that have to pay privately, but more importantly, it is not fair on those who can’t.

We used to have a country where through determination and hard work, you could get ahead. Education was a great leveller, the welfare system was mainly there for people to temporarily use until they found their feet again. Getting much-needed surgery wasn’t a luxury but a right. We believed in each other and celebrated others getting ahead. 

I want my leaders to pull us together, to give us that sense of Kiwi pride. I want them to get the basics right and deliver to us the kind of New Zealand we had and can have an improved version of now.

You are going to have a lot thrown at you over the next few months. The keyboard warriors will be out in force. Those with their own agendas will try and influence your vote. Now, you are going to have to do some research yourself. Don’t rely on the media, as they predominantly work on soundbites. Look at what the political parties are offering. Read and compare their policies. Go to a public meeting. Listen to the debates.

Give a damn because your vote counts.

I’m Paula Bennett, Former Deputy Prime Minister, for The Common Room.

Saturday soapbox

Saturday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation. You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, amuse, bemuse or simply muse, but not abuse.

There is a growing awareness that rights and responsibilities are a package deal. – Linda Fisher Thornton

s