As with any topic in the area of education, a great deal has already been said and written about science. This is especially true of this subject area which many find fascinating and absorbing but which others view with a generous measure of suspicion if not with outright fear and hostility.

The purpose of this article is not merely to add to what has already been written, but to outline an approach to science education which places the sub­ject in a Biblical perspective and which, consequently, should help to reduce the tension that is often felt between this subject and our faith. It should become clear that an effective treat­ment of science includes not just the teaching of the traditional facts, laws and theories, but also an examination of how science works. In other words, some grass roots analysis of the pro­cess itself. Failure to examine the scien­tific process will mean that an implicit and undesirable message about this process will be conveyed. This will come across in both the content of what is taught and the approach that is taken to this content. By examining the scientific process, it becomes possi­ble to place scientific knowledge in perspective. Only then can the tensions mentioned earlier be eliminated or re­duced.

The Scientific Age⤒🔗

It is generally accepted that we are at an important turning point in world history. Science and technology are in­fluencing the development of human history as no other single human ac­tivity has, and no area of life is left untouched. The generation of students presently in school will be entering a society which has been shaped by the science and information explosion. Training programs at school and on the job are preparing people to enter into a work force dominated by fin. electronic age, while the media give us the almost daily doses of heady scien­tific achievements in such areas as nuclear physics, medicine, space ex­ploration, and electronic umbrellas that protect us from enemy warheads. Frankly, the average citizen doesn't understand, but he has faith, knowing, or at least believing, that while the details are unclear we are moving in the right direction. We are surrounded by optimistic forecasts of the world of op­portunity that is being ushered in by science and technology, and this op­timism is not dampened by the few clouds that appear on the horizon, even if they are radioactive! Problems, if they arise, can be overcome with more knowledge and timely applica­tion of science; the long-awaited par­adise on earth is within sight and it will be delivered by man and his science.

Some have likened this struggle for power and control through the combined activities of science and tech­nology to the situation described in Genesis 11. The parallel between the building of the city of Babel and the new world of the future is that in both, man's activities would lead to control and security; in the former, with a city; in the latter, on a grander scale en­compassing the entire world. Conse­quently, modern science has been de­scribed as a type of Babel culture which seeks to establish man's position of power and autonomy.

And they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens... And the LORD came down to see the city, and [He] said, ... this is only the begin­ning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down, and there confuse their lan­guage...Genesis 11

In this depraved Babel culture, science will be perceived as the means to the great goal, and, consequently, its methods, the knowledge that it generates, and its practitioners will be viewed as superior to all others. In­stead of viewing science as one means of understanding reality, it will become the only acceptable representation, with the result that science will dictate the values, morals and standards of our society and culture. And thus man has come full circle in his attempt to order, control, predict, and generally make sense of his world. In the past, when man believed that the world was controlled by the capricious whims of the gods, the "scientist" who gave the world meaning was the priest. In to­day's world, where science has removed the web of ignorance that restrained the mind of man, the world has mean­ing only in scientific terms and the priest has been replaced with the sci­entist.

Concerned Voices←⤒🔗

Interestingly, we are not the only ones who are concerned with the per­suasive influence of science on the future of the world. In the last decade an increasing number of voices have spoken up, denouncing the impact of science and technology on our lives, suggesting that we are the victims, not the masters, of this force. As a result we now have groups who advocate the abolition of nuclear warheads, others like Greenpeace that take up environ­mental causes, from interfering with the Newfoundland seal hunts to active­ly interfering with nuclear testing by the French. It's time, these people ar­gue, to reevaluate the role that science plays, to place it in perspective and align it with the needs of society.

Reevaluation of Science Education←⤒🔗

This type of critical appraisal of science and its impact on society has also initiated the review of many of the approaches that were taken in science education. Education, quite naturally, is the place to begin if we want to make changes in the society of the future. After all, the future politicians, law­yers, scientists and members of the con­cerned public are presently in school. It is here that knowledge is being in­stilled, and values and attitudes are be­ing shaped.

One group that has recently ex­pressed strong concern for the present state of science education in Canada is the Science Council of Canada. The Council conducted one of the most ex­tensive and farreaching surveys of science education ever carried out in this country, and its pronouncement on the present state of science educa­tion was not very favorable. The report focused on a number of problems in­cluding teacher training, facilities, and textbooks. However, the most interest­ing observation in the context of the present discussion was the conclusion that "at issue now is not that students are not learning what science is, nor that they are failing to learn enough of it, but that students do not come to ap­preciate the personal, social or national relevance of science." In the words of one of the participants, "science is not being identified for students as part of the cultural fabric of society." Perhaps the most succinct formulation is that of Dr. D. Suzuki, another member of the committee, who states that the educational system "fails to educate" because it perpetuates and encourages a separation between the two cultures of arts and science. These comments suggest that the present curriculum emphasis turns out scientists who are very competent and efficient, but who have little perspective in understanding what responsibility they have to socie­ty, while the members of the general public are ignorant of the true effects of science and technology on their lives. These are the concerns that the Science Council has addressed in its report under a separate heading, "Re­directing Science Education."

Our Position←⤒🔗

While we can share many of the concerns mentioned above, ours go deeper. Our calling is to make clear to our students that science and technol­ogy are not neutral activities, but are employed by this world as a means of establishing man's autonomy. Conse­quently, we cannot be passive con­sumers of technology but must show in our discriminating use of it that we are pilgrims on earth. For one thing re­mains clear; while many appreciate the immense power and potential of science to do harm, most feel that with adequate controls it remains as the on­ly solution to the world's problems.

What about Science Education?←⤒🔗

In light of this background it becomes clear that we, too, must have or develop effective approaches to this subject area. The problem is one of developing science programs that will achieve this desired end. The objective or goal is reasonably clear; how to get there is the problem.

Aside from the traditional factual or knowledge component of our cur­riculum, what should we include? Clear­ly, we have to place science in perspec­tive and show that it is not autono­mous but must be subject to the Word of God. A number of the topics that are covered would then be radically changed. Think only of our approach to evolution and the related theories of cosmology. Traditionally, however, many other topics would remain essen­tially the same and would receive a treatment identical to what is found in the "secular" books.

If this is an accurate description, with minor adjustments, of the "tradi­tional" approach to science education, how do we decide whether we treat the material the way "others" do or wheth­er we incorporate major changes as we would with evolution?

The answer, of course, is very simple. If the "scientific" explanation contradicts the Scriptural explanation, we are obliged to alter the science to conform with Scripture.

This leads to the next question. Having decided that changes are re­quired, how do we then approach the material and how do we explain that science is at odds with Scripture?

An examination of the literature brings to light an interesting develop­ment. In these situations we frequent­ly resort to an examination of the scientific process itself, pointing to the difference between observations and data and the interpretation of this data. We show the students that scien­tists are people who bring into their work a set of ideas which influence what they do and how they interpret their data. In short, we are moving away from a strictly content-oriented approach, stressing knowledge of facts, to an examination of the factors that are at work in generating scientific "knowledge."

The topic of evolution mentioned above is a favorite for this type of ap­proach. The Christian presentations of this subject stress the meagerness of the data used and, in contrast, how farreaching the conclusions based on this data often are. We tend to stress alter­native explanations which are compatible with a Scriptural world view and perhaps even touch on the role of societal factors in shaping the "mind set" of scientists. In summary, the student is exposed to a critical look at the means by which science develops ex­planations concerning the world in which we live.

What happens, however, when the same student in a subsequent unit or lesson is introduced to a more "in­nocent" topic, like the development of the germ theory of disease in biology or the laws of motion in physics? All too often we resort back to the presentation of so-called facts and discoveries, conveniently, in this case, ignor­ing the process or means by which these facts are generated. Science is once again presented as that human ac­tivity which is objective in all its ways and systematically uncovers hidden facts and provides explanations of the bewildering world in which we live. This is science as we like it, providing the right answer to the questions that we ask. And it becomes easy to moti­vate the slow or reluctant when you can remind them that they had better learn this "stuff" because they need it for the next course. However, if an in­quiring mind survives this assault and asks if perhaps Pasteur's work on spon­taneous generation (which influenced the development of the Germ Theory of Disease) was in any way influenced by his religious views and the fledg­ling theory of evolution at that time, the question is discouraged; it doesn't fit.

It should be clear from this ac­count that the curriculum emphasis changes when topics are covered in which the "traditional" science is at odds with Scripture. Then the stress is on the subjective nature of science and the tentativeness of the facts and con­clusion. However, if the topic is considered to be neutral, we return to the content and knowledge-oriented ap­proach which carries with it the im­plicit message that science provides facts and shows us the truth about the world.

This latter approach is not only incorrect, it is extremely harmful. The tension that is so frequently encoun­tered between science and our faith is fostered by any teaching strategy which fails to examine consistently and critically the process which generates the explanations put forward by sci­ence. It is imperative that students develop a feeling for the way in which real science works.

In most cases this can only be done by getting away from the usual textbook approach to scientific meth­od, which is regarded by many as a myth. Scientific method, it is argued, may be a convenient way to write out the procedure after it has been done, but it does not give a true reflection of the interplay of factors that are oper­ating during the development of an idea.

Unfortunately, an entire curric­ulum was developed based on the idea that students should act like little scien­tists and, by rigorously following a prescribed scientific method, should retrace steps that led to the discovery of the major scientific laws. The in­evitable consequence was that students were looking for the "right answer" knowing that their results had to "fit" a certain law. Numerous studies and surveys of this approach have been conducted and are virtually unanimous in their condemnation of this method.

It may be instructive at this point briefly to consider what guiding prin­ciples are operating in modern science. In the first place, it is important to note that the approach used in science to­day had its origins with the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century. Much has been written about this pe­riod and the struggle that people like Galileo had with the church at that time. Most of the literature suggests that this was a struggle for scientific freedom. The real question was: would science allow the church to dictate "truth" about the natural world or would science be free to explore nat­ural phenomena and generate its own answers based on the observations that it made. Science, of course, won this battle and a few others like it (Dar­win's theory of origins) in the more recent past. Much is thus made of scien­tific freedom and the ability of science to provide meaningful explanations of the world in which we live. In fact, the implicit message is that the explana­tions put forth by science are superior to those given by others, especially those of religion. This idea receives added impetus with each new scientific discovery and in many ways is the direct consequence of modern science's great accomplishments. Even a cursory examination of the contributions made by science in the areas of medicine and control of disease can affirm that these accomplishments were made largely by dispensing with the traditional expla­nations which made liberal use of the supernatural, replacing them with care­ful observations and physical expla­nations. Here, then, scientific freedom has paid off very well.

Based on accomplishments like the one mentioned above, science has gradually come to be viewed as the superior means of constructing expla­nations about the world in which we live. In fact, it is felt that these ac­complishments are directly attributable to the freedom that science has to ex­plore whatever area it wills. In short, all the world is interpreted through, the eyes of the scientist.

What, then, are some of the guid­ing principles of modern science that have made it so effective? There is, of course, no hard and fast rule that can be applied to expose these principles. Very often they are not even articu­lated, and yet all would agree that they do exist and function as the ground rules for the enterprise. A number of important ones are listed below.

1. The Principle of Objectivity: Un­der this principle all science is con­sidered to be totally objective, scientific conclusions being based only on the facts. The rigorous procedures that are followed are thus designed to expose the facts.

2. The Principle of Materiality: Ac­cording to this principle it is as­sumed that all observable phenomena can be explained using material and mechanical expla­nations. There is no room here for supernatural explanations; they are, by definition, nonscientific.

3. The Principle of Causality: Ac­cording to this principle every observable effect has a discoverable cause.

4. The Principle of Consistency: This principle assumes that the natural world is ordered and governed by understandable laws which are fixed and do not change over time.

It should be noted that if we accept that the purpose of science is to pro­vide explanations for events in the physical world, then the principles listed are necessary. Clearly, there is a need to begin by assuming an underly­ing, discoverable order. Consider, for example, what would happen if we assumed the opposite: no order, no discoverable pattern — no science!

Similar statements could be made for the other three. Little science could be done if irrelevant material were used to draw conclusions and if it were necessary to assume that much of what we observed was the work of supernat­ural forces which constantly changed. Why, then, is there a measure of dis­comfort when we read the above list?

The reason lies in the fact that modern science has taken each of these principles to an extreme. Twentieth-century science has radically altered people's perception of space, time, and causation, and claims to have uncov­ered the basic principles of subatomic and galactic behavior. The only type of knowledge that has any meaning is that generated by a materialistic, mechanistic science. The laws of na­ture are cold and harsh, without human values, devoid of feelings, ab­solutely impersonal.

This has led to a mechanistic world view where the principles of science have become absolutes, defining the bounds of explanation. No other ex­planations have any meaning. Conse­quently, they deny any supernatural causes and reject any explanation that makes use of them. Our understanding of reality is reduced to a scientific one and everything is to be understood in scientific terms. This includes the nor­mal subject matter of physics, chem­istry and biology, but also such areas as religion, human behavior, and even morals and values.

Much of this reductionistic, mech­anistic world view is integrated into the bulk of science curricula and textbooks today. Many biology texts, for exam­ple, indicate that the differences be­tween lower and higher levels of bio­logical organization (cellular, tissue, organ, individual) are merely differences, in degree and that ultimately everything can be explained using laws that operate at the molecular level. Besides this there are the more obvious examples including kingdom surveys that start with the "simple" life forms and progress to the "higher" life forms with man at the top.

Finally then, what should our ap­proach be? Based on the preceding discussion, it should be clear that an important part of our science curric­ulum should include developing answers to questions like;

1. What is science?

2. What does it attempt to do?

3. What is the relationship between scientific answers and religious ones?

In the junior grades the answers that are developed with the students would clearly be simple, stressing the harmony between God's work of crea­tion and His Word. As students ma­ture, it would be useful to introduce them to some of the deeper implica­tions of these questions, showing them how science is often abused by the world. In this way they can develop a Scriptural perspective on science and consequently come to appreciate not only its great potential but also its limits. As I mentioned previously, much of this can only be accomplished by moving away from what has unfor­tunately become almost traditional: the teaching of science as if it were a body of facts to be committed to memory. Not only is this stifling for the student, but it loses sight of the purpose of science. Science is, and will remain, a process of developing explanations about the created world. Our teaching should reflect this by introducing stu­dents to this process and having them work with it.

In addition, we should attempt to introduce students to the idea that science is strongly influenced by the culture and society in which it is prac­tised. In other words, it is not nearly as objective as many would have us think. In many ways (some would say all) science is given its direction by the society in which it is practised. To mention just one example, consider the impact that nuclear warheads have had on scientific research; first in the areas of electronics and computers, but also in a quite different way on the general public, in getting them to ques­tion the direction in which science is going (MAD — mutually assured de­struction).

This appreciation for the interplay between science and society can best be demonstrated by adopting a history of science approach in certain topics. In this way the interplay between the two cultures can be observed as you watch a certain scientific concept develop over time. In physics, for example, it would prove interesting to trace the development of the various models of the universe or solar system from the time of the Greeks to the modern Big Bang theory. Using this example, it is fairly easy to demonstrate the constant interplay between the prevalent phi­losophy in a certain society and the way in which science was practised. The same could be done with the germ theory of disease in biology or even the development of the theory of evolu­tion.

What I have attempted to outline is an approach to science teaching which would give it a unique Scriptural "flavor". No single course could be turned over entirely to this approach, nor would this even be desirable. The reason is quite simple: every course has a certain body of factual material that must be covered and often takes much of the allotted time. The point I wish to make, however, is that if the ap­proach that I outlined is taken, then it can create a framework within which the more traditional factual material will hopefully gain more meaning. If we articulate these things and work them into the curriculum in a purpose­ful and direct manner, the students will be more inclined to have a positive outlook on what is after all one of the most natural activities for God's chil­dren to engage in.