Epistemic insight keynote

www.epistemicinsight.com
LASAR@canterbury.ac.uk

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07blqmv
BIG QUESTIONS DAY
Launch at Canterbury Christ Church University

• Knowledge about knowledge – particularly
questions, methods and norms of thought
within disciplines and interaction between
disciplines (teachable & assessable)
• Not ‘cross-curricular’ - Moving beyond topic
work to recognising the distinctiveness of the
disciplines (pedagogical approach)
What is Epistemic Insight?

Year Level
Relationships
between science and
religion
The nature of science in real
world contexts and
multidisciplinary arenas
Ways of knowing and
how they interact
Primary Learning
Outcomes
Science and religion are
mostly concerned with
different types of
questions, including
different types of why
question.
Science begins with observations
of the natural world and
constructing ways to explain our
observations.
Some methods are more scientific
than others
Science has some similarities
and some differences with
other ways of knowing that
we learn about in school.
Lower secondary
Learning Outcomes
Some people say that
science and religion are
compatible and some
people say they are not.
Some questions are more
amenable to science than others.
Different disciplines have
different preferred
questions, methods and
norms of thought.
Upper secondary
Learning Outcomes
Science and religion are
not necessarily
incompatible.
Scientism is not a necessary
presupposition of science.
Some questions are more
metaphysically sensitive than
others.
EI curriculum framework

KS 2 Cross-discipline question
‘Some methods are more scientific than others’

Why did the Titanic sink?
‘Some methods are more scientific than others’:
Investigating Archimedes principle and the history of boat building

KS 3: The Discipline Wheel

Can a robot be a good friend?
‘Different questions have different methods and norms of
thought

The ‘Bubble’ Tool
There are likely to be useful smaller
scientific questions we can explore
Partly amenable to science
Very amenable to science
• Why did the Titanic sink?
• What is the most interesting
book ever written?
• Why did the great fire of
London spread so quickly?
• Why do things fall to the
ground when you let
them go?
• Would a robot ever be
given the status of an
electronic person?
• Why did the Romans come
to Britain?
• Will we ever bring
back dinosaurs?
Some questions are more amenable to science than others

But is it alive?
What’s the difference between
being alive and appearing to be
alive?
What does science say are the
criteria for ‘being alive’?
What do other ways of knowing
tell you?
‘Disciplines each have preferred questions, methods and norms of thought’

Is this a ‘photo’ of a black hole?

Entrenched compartmentalisation
What makes a question a science question
… well it says it’s science in the timetable,
it says science on the front of the book –
and in secondary – it’s the name on the
door and the job title of the teacher!
What is a science
question?
What is science?

OBSERVE, OBSERVING, OBSERVATION, OBSERVABLE
SCIENCE HISTORY
KS1 20 0
KS2 31 0
KS3 7 0
KS4 7 0
Observations!

Opportunities and Possibilities
Scholarly thinking has
moved beyond conflict
models of the relationship
Increase of AI, robotics &
technology in everyday life
brings Big Questions to the
fore
Technology in the classroom
provides new opportunities to
develop students’ epistemic
insight and challenge their
misperceptions
Ofsted’s requirement for
considered curriculum & RE
Commission report provide
challenge and opportunity to
explore the place of RE in the
wider curriculum.

Quotes and stats from our
previous research in
secondary schools. These
findings motivated our
new focus ….

Teachers
Mr A (science): “we’ve had no cross-curricular sessions here since I’ve
been here – which is (pause) 19 years. [laughs] I think they may be
useful, so that at least we know what [the] teacher there is teaching.”
•Mr B (Science): “There is no relationship between Religious Studies
and science ... it is very hard for pupils to actually see where those
two can work together.”
•Mr D (RE): “I’m not terribly familiar with the science curriculum; I
don’t think they’re terribly familiar with mine.”

Separate compartments
“We’ve never done like science
in religion ... we don’t do
science and religion, we don’t
bond them together, we have
two different lessons.”
(Chas, age 14)

Off-topic
“We don’t ask science teachers
questions any more at the moment,
because we don’t think that they’d
answer them. We wouldn’t have
thought (pause) – oh they won’t
answer that because it’s not on
their topic.” David age 15

Science teachers avoid questions
“They’ve never put religion and
science together” and that “I
think like the science teachers
... do try and like avoid them
[questions].”

Student (Year 11)
I think brain science will explain everything
we think in terms of physical interactions in
your brain and what happens physically for
thought processes, but I feel as if there is
something more to me/ the way I think than
that. I think that this is what I mean by a
soul.
20

Student Comment (Year 10 boy)
I am not sure whether we have a soul … I
find it too unbelievable in terms of science
that we have a separate conscience when
we have discovered so much about how our
brain functions biologically. Overall i am
confused
21

Conclusion of the exploratory study
• Responses to many statements indicate a sense shared by
many religious and nonreligious students that there is
more to being human than science reveals.
• Many children (however) associate science with scientism,
physical reductionism and nature-nurture determinism.
• Significant proportions of students perceive science to be
in conflict with their own beliefs on matters relating to
‘what it means to be human’.
22

Uncritical Scientism
Our label uncritical scientism is explicit that scientism can be
accepted uncritically – which is central to our use of the construct
in education.
Thus, an important criterion for uncritical scientism is that the
student holds this stance uncritically without an appreciation that
there is a range of views on the power and limitations of science
and that scientism is a controversial stance to take.
Billingsley, B. & Nassaji, M. Science & Education (2019) 28: 87.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-019-00031-7)

Science, Religion and Big Questions
LASAR 2020 Conference: Science, Religion and Big Questions: What are
the Big Questions for school students and young adults – and how can
we help them to address them?
The LASAR Research Centre and the Department of Education at Oxford University are
calling for research papers that help to characterise young people’s curiosity about Big
Questions and / or discuss strategies led by education and / or the media to help them to
better understand the relationships between Science and Religion. Papers will be organised
into topical themes – which are envisaged to be: Ways to keep the planet safe,
communication in the multicultural world, health and well being, physics and
the nature of science, and fourthly, artificial life and humanlike machines.
22-23 June 2020 Department of Education, University of Oxford

The Initiative is funded by:

Epistemic insight keynote

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