Appeals to Science: Recirculation of Online Claims in Socioscientific Reasoning

Anne Solli

doi:10.1007/s11165-019-09878-w

Abstract

Conflicting knowledge claims regarding complex issues have become readily available through networked digital media, and the introduction of Internet access to classrooms has provided opportunities for accessing a huge number of sources. Science education plays an important role in providing students opportunities to seek and evaluate information and engage in reasoning. The aim of this article is to analyze ways upper secondary science students invoke recirculated online claims originating from a scientific paper in conversations regarding genetically modified organisms (GMO), and to understand how such invocations are effective in order for students to engage accountably. By using the notion of communicative activity types—the meaning and function of the recirculated claims were analyzed in (1) a peer discussion, (2) a debate, and (3) a reflective seminar. The persuasive power of the discursive resource “appeals to science” is illustrated when students enlist scientific objectivity and rigor to underpin the credibility of arguments in a debate, and when qualifying a reflective position in a seminar, whereas they reflect on how actors in a Web context use appeals to science rhetorically when engaged in a discussion with peers reporting online claims. The study offers insight into kinds of communicative competences involved in conversations and how “scientific facts” justify, in this case, opposition to GMO. Finally, it is reflected upon the importance of not only learning how to make well-founded knowledge claims, but also to understand how science is used rhetorically in order to develop appropriate responses to complex issues in the digital age.

Highlights

The Internet has become the dominant medium through which the public access knowledge and information in all areas and disciplines (Hodson 2011)
Reasoning is thereby understood as sociocultural activity, and the meaning and function of invocations of science were analyzed when students discussed genetically modified organisms (GMO) in various classroom activities: (1) a deliberative peer discussion, (2) a staged debate where various actors were enacted, and (3) a reflective seminar
The students were drawing on previous experiences and dialogues with peers and online texts, and in the particular situation they had to choose a way of using the discursive resources available in ways that corresponded with the task given by the teacher and the contextual premises in the school setting such as orientation to the curriculum and grading criteria

Summary

Introduction

The Internet has become the dominant medium through which the public access knowledge and information in all areas and disciplines (Hodson 2011) It offers a vast array of useful and contradictory claims and arguments from a multiplicity of sources including conflicting knowledge claims from different actors and fields. The ability to navigate and critically reflect on the content and services available via information and communication technologies becomes ever more important. This requires us to be able to select and evaluate the sources of information, as well as the information itself, which requires new and complex skills (Mason et al 2018).

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Conclusion