DEFINING SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY: OVERCOMING STUDENT PERCEPTIONS AND MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY AND THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

The key challenge in introducing scientific controversy to a class of college-level, non-science majors is that most have no clear understanding of what constitutes a true scientific controversy. True scientific controversies, involving carefully reasoned and well-supported hypotheses and alternative theories which challenge, and may in time replace, existing paradigms, constitute a primary intellectual engine that spurs research and advances scientific knowledge. However, just as with the term theory – which, as it has entered the American vernacular, is used to indicate anything from a semi-informed hunch to a wild guess – nonspecific use of the term controversy when discussing science leads to confusion. Preying on these weaknesses, anti-science organizations such as the Discovery Institute advance their agendas by promoting pseudointellectual “Teach the Controversy” platforms, but these are intended to further obfuscate the true meaning and role of scientific controversy. The media, intentionally or not, compounds the problem by publicizing outrageous claims by prominent individuals (e.g. politicians, celebrities), groups (e.g. fundamentalist religious organizations, political action committees), and assorted eccentric quasi-intellectuals, which seem a challenge to science to the uninitiated, but have no scientific merit of their own. The net result is that what a majority of students would typically identify as a scientific controversy is, at best, a nonscientific critique of a scientific principle, about which there may actually be little debate. To this end, I advocate the development of a clear, robust definition for scientific controversy. If students are to learn to discriminate genuine scientific controversies from either valid or invalid social controversies that involve or implicate science, they must clearly understand not only the types of questions that science can and cannot answer, but must also be adept at using the language of science correctly.