• Title/Summary/Keyword: scientific skepticism

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Norms and Values of Korean Scientific Community (연구규범과 가치관을 통해 본 한국과학기술자사회의 성격: 공공부문 연구자를중심으로)

  • Park, Hea-Jae
    • Journal of Technology Innovation
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    • v.16 no.1
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    • pp.81-106
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    • 2008
  • By analyzing a nation-wide survey, this article examines research related norms and values of 684 scientists in 16 universities and 7 government supported research institutes. The survey shows that Korean scientific community tends to reject communality and disinterestedness while it accepts universalism as a norm. Organized skepticism is received a lukewarm support. In contrast, Korean scientific community tends to perceive the intellectual property and secrecy as legitimate and believe that scientists should consider the applicability of scientific research outcome and its social impacts when they choose research topics. When other variables are controlled for, the more basic research a scientist conducts the scientist is more likely to support communality and reject secrecy. The younger scientists are less likely to accept disinterestedness and the claim that the scientists should keep distance from social issues than the older. Scientists who work in the government-supported research institutes are more likely to view secrecy for more than 6 months as legitimate and reject the claim that science should not be affected by society than university scientists. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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Media Dependency and Public Skepticism in Authoritarian States: Discursive Trends in Disseminating Information about COVID-19 in Iran

  • Alireza Azeri Matin
    • Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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    • v.11 no.4
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    • pp.1-13
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    • 2023
  • Being one of the first and hardest hit countries by the coronavirus, Iran still continues to preserve its place among nations with the highest rates of infection and COVID-19 related deaths. While on the surface, such worrying status evinces the failure of the authorities in handling the crisis, at deeper levels, it points to the fundamentalist nature of the government and political system of the country. In this view, the current devastating condition in Iran is a clear indication of the all-out influence of the Islamic regime's ideologies on officials' decision-making and their political agendas throughout the pandemic. Accordingly, the staterun mainstream media, as the most preeminent institution of power, have been incessantly engaged in disseminating a series of ideology-laden information around the issues concerning the coronavirus, and in line with the developing political discourses during pandemic. Far from being based on factual accounts or scientific facts, these disseminated messages inevitably grew into a source of disinformation, ultimately resulting in overall public confusion and skepticism. Through examining the data gathered from some of the most prominent online news agencies run by the government, this study identifies five major discursive trends through which the mainstream media propagated ambiguous and manipulative information about COVID-19. These findings are then explained in the light of media system dependency theory, leading to the argument that within autocratic nation-states, public reliance on media during a national/global crisis brings about new opportunities for state exploitation, and further distressing consequences for the people.

Against Skepticism: Doubt and Belief in C. S. Peirce and Michael Polanyi (찰스 S. 퍼스와 마이클 폴라니의 회의론과 믿음(belief)에 대한 비교 연구)

  • Kim, Dong Ju
    • 기호학연구
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    • no.54
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    • pp.7-36
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    • 2018
  • Michael Polanyi's idea of tacit knowledge came from the realization that scientific objectivity and critical philosophy had become too restrictive for philosophy, especially in the realm of meaning, which is beyond positivistic proof and contains more non-critical elements than critical ones. In social life, people still share certain kinds of knowledge and beliefs which they obtain without making or learning those explicitly. Contemplating the role and significance of tacit knowledge, he called for a post-critical philosophy that integrates the realm of meaning and thereby appreciates the intertwined nature of tacit and explicit knowledge. Polanyi's position towards skepticism and doubt shows similarities with Charles S. Peirce's thinking about the relationship between belief and doubt. Although Peirce's semeiotics stands firmly in the tradition of critical philosophy, he affirms that doubt cannot be a constant state of mind and only belief can form a basis for a specific way of life. Polanyi's approach differs from Peirce's by focusing on the impossibility of scientific knowledge based solely on principles and precision, and his emphasis on the crucial role of the community of scientists. Nevertheless, the deeper implications of Peirce's contemplations on belief and doubt have myriad ramifications on the philosophy of science as well as the sociology of science.

A Study of Valid Measurement in Science Related Attitude(I) (과학 관련 태도의 타당한 측정을 위한 연구(I))

  • Woo, Jong-Ok;Lee, Kyung-Hoon
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.332-348
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    • 1995
  • The use of attitude as a psychological concepts dates back to 1918(Thomas and Znaniecki). Assessment of attitudes has been conducted by a number of researchers since then in a wide range of contexts: religion, government, industry, community interrelations, and education; and sociology and psychology. In science, the number of research summaries and meta-analyses points to the significance of the concept of attitude toward science. However, in spite of the wide spread use of attitude assessment in science, many of the existing instruments have severe limitations. Those limitations serve as the rationale for the construction of a new instrument to assess attitudes toward science The term "attitude" and "science" are somewhat ambiguous, taking on different meanings for different people in different contexts. Very often an assessment includes several dimensions of attitude and, therefore, provides no clear idea of what was really measured. As a result there is no consistency with respect to the construct among attitude instruments. To clarify this issue, Gauld(1982), Munby(1983a, 1983b), Blosser(1984) and Haladyna and Shaughnessy(1982) offer some guiding descriptions. Attitude as it relates to science is divided into two areas-scientific attitude and attitude toward science. Scientific attitude refers to a particular approach a person assumes for solving problems, for assessing ideas and information, and for making decisions. It includes such scientific methods and predispositions as objectivity, suspended judgement, critical evaluation, and skepticism. Munby(1983a, 1983b) characterized scientific attitude as thinking as scientists do, that is, acting on evidence in a disciplined way. Attitude toward science. on the other hand, may address scientific attitudes, scientists, scientific careers, methods of teaching science, scientific interests, parts of curriculum, or the subject of science in the classroom (Blosser,1984). It may refer to belief about processes, theoretical products, technological products, or the science-technology relationship (Munby, 1983).

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Developing the Questionnaire to Measure the Perception of the Norms of Science and Applying to Pre-service Science Teachers (과학 규범에 관한 인식 측정 도구 개발 및 예비 과학교사 대상 적용)

  • Ha, Minsu;Shin, Sein;Lee, Jun-Ki
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.39 no.4
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    • pp.489-498
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    • 2019
  • This study aims to develop and apply questionnaire to identify pre-service science teachers' level of norms of science based on CUDOs, a scientific norm presented by R. Merton. In addition, we compared the pre-service science teachers' perception of scientific norm by major, grade, and gender, and analyzed the types of scientific norms through cluster analysis. For the study, 260 pre-service science teachers from two universities were involved. First, based on the CUDOs of R. Merton, 32 questionnaire items from six domains (pursuit of personal interests through scientific research, the pursuit of national interests through scientific research, pursuit of universal welfare through scientific research, non-communalism, non-universalism, and anti-organized skepticism) were developed. The study found that the statistical validity and reliability of the questionnaire items were acceptable. There were no significant differences in the scores of pre-service science teachers' anti-scientific norm by gender, major, and academic year. We conducted a cluster analysis and identified three types of scientific norms (traditional scientific norm, modern pragmatism, and utilitarian views).

Developing and Applying the Questionnaire to Measure High School Students' Unskeptical Attitude in Science Inquiry (과학탐구 상황에서 고등학생들의 반회의주의적 태도 측정도구 개발 및 적용)

  • Rachmatullah, Arif;Ha, Minsu
    • Journal of Science Education
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    • v.42 no.3
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    • pp.308-321
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    • 2018
  • The purpose of the study is to develop a questionnaire that examines unskeptical attitudes in scientific inquiry context. The questionnaire items were developed through literature research, expert review, and statistical analyses for validity and the differences in scores were identified by gender and tracks. A total of 363 high school students participated in the study. To explore the validity evidence of items, the Rasch analysis and the reliability of internal consistency were performed, and the two-way ANOVA was performed to compare the scores of the unskeptical attitudes between gender and academic track. Self-reporting and Likert-scaling 23 items were developed to measure unskeptical attitudes in scientific inquiry context. The items were developed in the sub-domain of scientific inquiry: 'questioning and hypothesis generating,' 'experiment designing,' and 'explaining and interpreting.' Second, the validity and reliability of the unskeptical were identified in a rigorous method. The validity of items were identified by multi-dimensional partial score model analysis through the Rasch model, and all 23 items were found to be fit to model. Various reliability evidences were also found to be appropriate. It was found that there were no significant differences of unskeptical attitude score between the gender and academic track except one comparison. The developed questionnaire could be used to check an unskeptical attitude in the course of scientific inquiry and to compare the effects of scientific inquiry classes.

Impact of experience on government policy toward acceptance of Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (정부정책에 대한 경험이 수소 연료전지 자동차의 수용에 미치는 영향)

  • Gang, Min-Jeong;Park, Hui-Jun
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society for Quality Management Conference
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    • 2010.04a
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    • pp.465-470
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    • 2010
  • Korea government declared that "low carbon, green growth" through green technologies and clean energy to be the new national vision for the next 60 years(President's Liberation Day speech on Aug. 15, 2008). And succeeding "Green New Deal" plan involves nine core projects including energy saving, recycling, clean energy development. It is because hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, using electricity from chemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen, let out water which is a by-product of such chemical reaction instead of emitting harmful particulate and gases such as NOX, SOX and CO2 that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and its technology are drawing public attention as one of the sensible solutions in accomplishing "low carbon, green growth" agenda. Nevertheless There are many chances that let the people have a practical experience of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Sometimes new products, including hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, made by advanced technology can not penetrate through the market when it faces public skepticism that is stimulated from lack of knowledge and experience. That is the reason why not only cost benefit analyses and scientific risk assessments but also public acceptance studies toward hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have to be performed [Schulte, 2004]. This research address a need for comprehensive study on factors influencing public acceptance of hydrogen fuel cell car, specifically focusing on impacts of personal experience related to governmental science and technology policy toward public acceptance.

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"Knownism"-Bridge-Building Philosophy Between Science and Religion (가지론("Known 사상")-과학과 종교의 가교)

  • 김항묵
    • Journal of the Korean Professional Engineers Association
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    • v.21 no.2
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    • pp.51-57
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    • 1988
  • The writer has worked out his original philosophy both scientific and religious, which he calls "Knownism" The new thought states; the word "known" in "knownism" means "already well-informed in the providence" about the essence of the things, and the true state of the reality, hence the knownism, as the existence of God is set forth as a premise. The knownism is a philosophy unified reasonably the science and the faith into one, for the humans can perceive and realize the essence and the true state, and authorize the truth transcending the experience by the scientific method. The new thought of the knownism is a bridge-building between the natural science and the religious faith. The idea explains that the life is the process to pursue the essence of the things and the god, and the truth is immanent in the original nature of things and in God′s sphere. This thought is a philorophy of possibility to solve the paradigms-to-be such as thinking, faith experience, and supernatural power, so that it presents a vision in the human life as a profitable religious science philosophy. The knownism is much different from agnosticism, skepticism, empiricism, and agnosticism. The grace of God may be detected differently from the supernatural power. The new dark clouds overspread abruptly the summer sky are not new ones but originally derived frosm worn-out water drops. Thus those are called the old clouds. The Korean word "known"(노운) of which pronunciation is same with the English "known" means the old clouds, hence also the name, Knownism. The root of the new clouds is detectable from the preserved old clouds. The old clouds symbolized in the paper indicate the essence and the principles of the things and the fittest, or the key for the solution of the problem in the epistemology, believing that everything has its own, proper nature, the writer sums up his theory by insisting that the humans have to find out the "old clouds" or the "known" in knownism to live eternally either in this world or in other dimensions, though the human beings are transformed into the other phases of life. The writer proclaims through the ideas for the United Nations to fortify the Confederate System of World Nations in order to ensure the world peace and the future of the humans.

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The Effect of Physical Computing Education to Improve the Convergence Capability of Secondary Mathematics-Science Gifted Students (중등 수학과학 영재를 위한 피지컬컴퓨팅 교육이 융합적 역량 향상에 미치는 영향)

  • Kim, Jihyun;Kim, Taeyoung
    • The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.87-98
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    • 2016
  • Our study is composed of Arduino robot assembly, board connecting and collaborative programming learning, and it is to evaluate their effect on improving secondary mathematics-science gifted students' convergence capability. Research results show that interpersonal skills, information-scientific creativity and integrative thinking disposition are improved. Further, by analyzing the relationship between the sub-elements of each thinking element, persistence and imagination for solving problems, interest of scientific information, openness, sense of adventure, a logical attitude, communication, productive skepticism and so on are extracted as important factors in convergence learning. Thus, as the result of our study, we know that gifted students conducted various thinking activities in their learning process to solve the problem, and it can be seen that convergence competencies are also improved significantly.

Transfer of Students' Understanding of NOS through SSI Instruction (과학관련 사회쟁점 학습을 통한 과학의 본성에 대한 이해의 전이)

  • Chung, Yoonsook;Kim, Sung-Won
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.35 no.5
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    • pp.895-905
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    • 2015
  • Citizens should be sensitive to the complex and controversial SSIs (Socioscientific Issues), be able to make a responsible decision with evidence and empathy, and furthermore take political action for the larger welfare. The premise of this research is that understanding the nature of science (NOS) takes an important role when students and adults participate in the discourse on SSIs because SSI reasoning requires individuals to examine information and counter-information with skepticism. We therefore designed SSI programs that were incorporated with NOS by adapting a contextualized-reflective approach. The leading research question was to what extent SSI contexts contributed to promoting students' understanding of NOS. A total of 71 11th grade students participated in this program. The school was located in an urban city near the capital city of Seoul, South Korea. We designed SSI programs to cover the issues of genetically modified organisms, climate change, and nuclear energy. Each issue required four to six class periods to complete. We conducted pre- and post-program tests using the revised VNOS-C, recorded group discussions or debates and collected student worksheets to observe the increase of student NOS understanding. As a result of this program, students showed moderate improvement in their understanding of NOS.