During the COVID-19 crisis, we have been able to witness, in many countries, a substantive resistance to the science-based arguments of politicians and to the calls from the medical field to implement safety measures (masks, distancing) and to get vaccinated. In this text, some reflections are provided on what this resistance might tell the…

Although argumentation is a critical historical component of scientific literacy, the recent coronavirus pandemic and associated issues have highlighted the importance of argumentation in science practice. Argumentation that aligns with functional scientific literacy requires gathering evidence and reasoning to support or refute claims related to…

This article takes issue with the widespread assumption that students' socioscientific decisions ought to be evidence based. On the basis of a careful conceptual analysis, it is argued that it is misleading to think in terms of evidence in socioscientific decision making because such decision making is a process of deliberation in which…

This paper brings to light the ideas of a pioneering but largely forgotten social critic, C. E. Ayres. In his first book, "Science: The False Messiah" (1927), which was written in consultation with John Dewey, Ayres advanced a forceful and original critique of science and technology. He argued that technological change was occurring at a…

Science educators have long been concerned with how formal schooling contributes to learners' capacities to engage with science after school. This article frames productive engagement as fundamentally about the coordination of claims with evidence, but such coordination requires a number of reasoning capabilities to evaluate the strength of…

This paper presents a normative pragmatics analysis of students' use of science content in eight socioscientific group discussions about human gene therapy. The specific focus of the paper is on the argumentative role that invocations of science had in the dialectics of the discussions. The analysis suggests that science content occasionally…

A variety of different arguments have been offered for teaching "both sides" of the evolution/ID debate in public schools. This article reviews five of the most common types of arguments advanced by proponents of Intelligent Design and demonstrates how and why they are founded on confusion and misunderstanding. It argues on behalf of teaching…

This paper considers opportunities for teachers to use an argumentation pedagogy in order to develop students' geoscience thinking skills. Educational argumentation principles and procedures are outlined. Argumentation can foster both student and teacher motivation and interest in the context of accessible and well-structured geoscience content.…

Socioscientific issues encompass social dilemmas with conceptual or technological links to science. The process of resolving these issues is best characterized by informal reasoning which describes the generation and evaluation of positions in response to complex situations. This article presents a critical review of research related to informal…

Describes public communication as either priestly (didactic, bringing institutionally authorized meanings to an initiate audience) or bardic (giving voice to a body of meanings already at work in the consciousness of the auditors). Suggests that the public discourse of contemporary scientists is an important example of the priestly voice. (SR)