The 'BrainCanDo' Handbook of Teaching and Learning

Practical Strategies to Bring Psychology and Neuroscience into the Classroom

Julia Harrington, Jonathan Beale, Amy Fancourt, Catherine Lutz, Julia Harrington, Jonathan Beale, Amy Fancourt, Catherine Lutz

• Publisher: David Fulton Publishers
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367187033
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429588631
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The 'BrainCanDo' Handbook of Teaching and Learning provides teachers and school leaders with a concise summary of how some of the latest research in educational neuroscience and psychology can improve learning outcomes. It aims to create a mechanism through which our growing understanding of the brain can be applied in the world of education. Subjects covered include memory, social development, mindsets and character.

Written by practising teachers working in collaboration with researchers, the chapters provide a toolkit of practical ideas which incorporate evidence from psychology and neuroscience into teaching practice with the aim of improving educational outcomes for all. By increasing both teachers' and pupils' understanding of the developing brain, 'BrainCanDo' aims to improve cognitive performance and attainment, foster a love of learning and enable a healthy and productive approach to personal development.

This book will appeal to educators, primarily those working in secondary schools, but also those within higher and primary school education. It will also be of interest to students of education, professionals looking to enhance their teaching and researchers working in the fields of education, psychology and neuroscience.

PART 1

Controversies and applications

CHAPTER 1

Educational neuroscience and educational neuroscientism

Jonathan Beale

The greatest problem facing educational neuroscience and psychology is crossing the bridge between theory and practice: how to move from scientific theories and evidence to their practical application in education. Crossing this bridge too hastily leaves educational neuroscience and psychology open to the accusation of ‘scientism’: excessive belief in the power or value of science. Scientism would be manifested in attitudes such as the dogmatic assumption that scientific methods or findings can be immediately or straightforwardly applied in education.

How can neuroscience and psychology be applied in education without risking scientism? Scientism is an elusive concept, so this chapter offers an account of what scientism is (the first three sections). It is argued that education should be included among the areas that are the most difficult to reduce to explanations in scientific terms (the third section). The account of scientism is used to outline three examples of ways in which neuroscience and psychology could be applied in education that would be open to accusations of scientism (the fourth section). Three indicators of scientism when scientific theories or evidence are applied in education are described. Alongside each indicator, suggestions are offered on what we should watch out for to avoid being scientistic when applying theories or evidence from neuroscience and psychology in education (the final section) – or, to avoid what we might call ‘educational neuroscientism’.

What is scientism?

‘Scientism’ is an elusive concept that has appeared increasingly in recent years, especially in philosophical debates. It tends to be levelled as a criticism against views that make controversial claims about the nature, value or power of science. The term is usually treated as pejorative, and those levelling it as a criticism often take it to be fairly obvious what ‘scientism’ is and what is wrong with being ‘scientistic’. But the variety of views against which scientism is levelled suggest that it is neither clear what scientism is nor what is wrong with being scientistic. Scientism possesses many features and takes many forms. Many definitions have been offered, some pejorative and some neutral. A growing number of those accused of scientism are happy to bear the term with pride, as a neutral or even an honorific term. Those donning it as an honorific term reply to their critics by arguing that scientism is a reasonable philosophical position.¹

‘Scientism’ was coined in roughly the mid-19th century. Its original meaning is neutral: ‘the methods, mental attitude, doctrines, or modes of expression … characteristic of scientists’.² This use, which is now rare, was its only meaning until the early 20th century, when it gained a pejorative use, which we could crudely define as ‘excessive belief in the power of science’ (Haack, 2013 [2009], 2–3) or excessive ‘science enthusiasm’ (Boudry and Pigliucci, 2017, 2). This is its common use nowadays. Such definitions raise a more specific question: what is it to have excessive belief in the power of science or excessive science enthusiasm? This is where scientism becomes more difficult to define.

Most forms of scientism make or imply controversial claims about the nature, value or power of science. Sometimes the views look patently untenable, but sometimes they do not look controversial. For example, in the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Simon Blackburn defines scientism as follows:

Pejorative term for the belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry

[Blackburn, 1994, 344]

This just looks like another way of expressing philosophical naturalism: the view that the natural world is all that exists and that it should be studied using the methods best suited to the study of the natural world – that is, those of the natural sciences. According to naturalism, or at least the form sometimes called ‘methodological naturalism’, we can find complete explanations for all phenomena without appeal to anything beyond the natural world. Since naturalism (in its many forms) is the orthodox position in contemporary philosophy, scientism, based on Blackburn’s definition, does not seem to be controversial.

The most common targets for allegations of scientism are controversial claims about science’s expansion. Consequently, the most common way of defining scientism is as a thesis about science’s limits or lack of limits. For example, Mikael Stenmark argues that scientism is synonymous with ‘scientific expansionism’: the view that

the boundaries of science (that is, typically the natural sciences) could and should be expanded in such a way that something that has not previously been understood as science can now become a part of science

[Stenmark, 2003, 783]

We cannot, however, treat scientism synonymously with scientific expansionism because scientism takes expansionist and non-expansionist forms. The latter includes views where the natural sciences are unwarrantedly assigned a higher value over non-scientific areas of inquiry and culture but no attempt is made to expand the limits of natural science. For example, Tom Sorell, author of the seminal monograph on scientism, Scientism: Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science (1991), defines scientism as follows:

Scientism is a matter of putting too high a value on science in comparison with other branches of learning or culture

[Sorell, 1991, x]

This could be manifested in ways that do not involve any expansion of science. What is essential to scientism, based on Sorell’s definition, is an evaluative judgement of the value of science over non-scientific areas of inquiry and culture – for example, to hold that the arts or humanities are of little or no value compared to the sciences.

A look at scientism’s history helps to identify non-expansionist forms and the important role of scientific expansionism in the concept’s origins. ‘Science’, in the context of scientism, almost always concerns the natural sciences. ‘Science’ acquired its narrower modern use during the mid-19th century, when it became synonymous with natural science. This is its dominant sense today. ‘Scientism’ was coined not long afterwards (the Oxford English Dictionary cites its earliest occurrence as 1877). In the early 20th century, ‘scientism’ gained a pejorative connotation, largely following reactions against scientific expansionism – that is, against attempts to expand the bounds of the natural sciences by applying their methods to other disciplines. Some perceived this as excessively ambitious and worried that certain disciplines would become regarded as obsolete in comparison with science. Some allegations of scientism were directed at practitioners of non-scientific disciplines, particularly those working in the non-natural sciences, for imitating the teaching or vocabulary of the natural sciences in their fields.

In his seminal tripartite set of papers on scientism, ‘Scientism and the Study of Society’ (Economica, 1942–1944), F. A. von Hayek describes such imitation as definitive of scientism: ‘we shall’, he wrote, ‘wherever we are concerned … with that slavish imitation of the method and language of Science, speak of “scientism” or the “scientistic” prejudice’ (von Hayek, 1942, 269). This is one of the first explicit pejorative definitions of scientism.

In the first of his papers on scientism, Hayek offers an illuminating summary of its origins. Hayek argues that scientism, understood as the ‘slavish imitation’ of science, emerged during the first half of the 19th century. During this time, the increasing success of the natural sciences ‘began to exercise an extraordinary fascination on those working in other fields’. This led to those working in other disciplines – particularly the non-natural sciences – to ‘imitate … the teaching and vocabulary’ of the natural sciences. Disciplines outside the natural sciences ‘became increasingly concerned to vindicate their equal status by showing that their methods were the same as those of their brilliantly successful sisters’ – that is, the natural sciences. This ran the risk of those disciplines imitating methods from the natural sciences ‘rather than … adapting their [own] methods more and more to their own particular problems’ (von Hayek, 1942, 268).

If Hayek’s historical account is roughly correct, it is plausible that the focus laid on the natural sciences in the concept of scientism and the term’s negative connotation have been brought about largely as a result of the success of the natural sciences. Their success has led to a widespread belief that the methods of the natural sciences can be extrapolated; it has led some practitioners of other disciplines to imitate their methods; and it has led some to think that the natural sciences are more valuable than other fields.

Scientism, based on Hayek’s account, denotes imitation for science as a result of deference. This need not involve attempts to expand science. If such imitation is a form of scientism, the concept cannot be treated synonymously with ‘scientific expansionism’, pace Stenmark. While the most common type of scientism may well be what Stenmark calls scientific expansionism, it is not the only form scientism takes and it cannot be used as a means of defining it.

The limits of science

Scientism cannot be defined without considering the following question: what are the limits of science? To address this question, consider the most extreme view: science has no limits. The editors of a recent volume on scientism, Science Unlimited: The Challenges of Scientism, call this view ‘science unlimited’ (Boudry and Pigliucci, 2017, 2). This view is rare. Even the logical positivist Rudolf Carnap, who claimed that ‘Science … has no limits’, immediately qualified that statement by writing that ‘this does not mean that there is nothing outside of science and that it is all-inclusive’ and the ‘total range of life has still many other dimensions outside of science’ (Carnap, 1967 [1928], 290). Yet, some philosophers have tried to offer examples of endorsements of ‘science unlimited’. Stenmark describes the strongest form of scientism as follows:

In its most ambitious form, scientism states that science has no boundaries: eventually science will answer all human problems. All the tasks human beings face will eventually be solved by science

[Stenmark, 2003, 783]

Stenmark quotes the following as an example. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, wrote:

It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people. … At every turn we seek its aid. … The future belongs to science and to those who make friends with science

[Nehru, 1960, 564]

Stenmark quotes this to illustrate that some politicians are ‘champions’ of scientism (Stenmark, 2001, 15). Sorell quotes this to illustrate how widespread scientism is. ‘Views like Nehru’s’, Sorell writes, ‘were once quite widely held’ and ‘were perhaps typical of the scientism of the politicians of the 1950s and 1960s’ (Sorell, 1991, 2). But we should be careful to not take this quote too seriously. It is taken from a speech Nehru gave at a national science conference and seems like a hyperbolical passage, typical of the kind someone in his position might be expected to give at such an event.

It is difficult to find anyone who endorses what Stenmark describes as the ‘most ambitious form’ of scientism. Perhaps the closest we can get is those who endorse the view that science can encompass all of those domains often claimed to be especially problematic to bring within the domain of natural science: religion and the supernatural, philosophy, intentionality and morality. The final of those is commonly held to be that which most eludes science’s reach. In the essays in the aforementioned volume on scientism (Boudry and Pigliucci, 2017), several contributors argue that science has few limits, but no matter how far we expand its boundaries, science cannot provide an objective basis for morality. The view that science can do so seems to be what is meant by ‘science unlimited’ in that volume. Examples cited in that collection of those who hold that science can provide an objective basis for morality are Sam Harris (ibid., 22, 44, 123, 189) and Michael Shermer (ibid., 97–101, 106, 189). Harris is the most commonly cited target. Harris’s The Moral Landscape (Harris, 2010) puts forward the view that science can determine values (Pigliucci,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the editors
• About the contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction: The ‘BrainCanDo’ approach to teaching and learning
• PART 1: Controversies and applications
• PART 2: Becoming a successful learner
• PART 3: Motivation
• PART 4: Well-being
• PART 5: Subject-specific research
• Index