ABSTRACT
Teaching about the nature of science is a central thrust of many current science curriculum reform initiatives (e.g. National Research Council, 1996). However, while there is broad consensus among science educators about the merits of this movement, there is less agreement about the character of science and how it should be represented in schools (Matthews 1998; McComas, 1998). In the four decades since the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s The structure of scientific revolutions in 1962, radical new questions have been raised about the nature of the scientific enterprise. Kuhn challenged the assumption of science based on individual enterprise, empirical evidence, rational argument, objectivity and value neutrality. Rather, he proposed that science proceeds through the socially embedded activities of its practitioners, with scientific knowledge (theories) developing through cyclic periods of consensus and dissensus among the members of the community. Science, in the post-Kuhnian era, is seen as a complex, value-laden enterprise, subject to the range of human social behaviours including ambition, care, jealousy, prudence, friendship and altruism.
