Worldview Theory Research Articles

A ‘narrowing of inquiry’ in American moral psychology and education

We explore the possibility that a priori philosophical commitments continue to result in a narrowing of inquiry in moral psychology and education where theistic worldviews are concerned. Drawing from the theories of Edward L. Thorndike and John Dewey, we examine naturalistic philosophical commitments that influenced the study of moral psychology and moral education in the USA. We then address the question of whether these foundational naturalistic commitments can be rendered as compatible with theistic commitments, using both modernist and postmodern philosophical approaches that might be viewed as attempts at compatibility. Arguing that these attempts at compatibility fail, we draw from contemporary approaches to moral psychology and education in order to illustrate how naturalistic commitments might prevent these approaches from adequately addressing theistic understandings and experiences of morality.

Lower Secondary Students’ Views in Astrobiology

Astrobiology is, on a profound level, about whether life exists outside of the planet Earth. The question of existence of life elsewhere in the universe has been of interest to many societies throughout history. Recently, the research area of astrobiology has grown at a fast rate, mainly due to the development of observational methods, and the media is frequently reporting on new research findings. International surveys show that astrobiology questions are among those that interest young people the most. The popularity of astrobiology and the way it captures much science content makes it an interesting area for science teaching. However, there is very little research directly focused upon students’ views in astrobiology. The study reported in this paper draws from the answers of 186 Swedish lower secondary students (16 years old) to a questionnaire, with closed and open-ended questions regarding their views of issues in astrobiology. The study was guided by the worldview theory (Cobern 1991; Cobern, Science Education 80(5):579–610, 1996; Cobern, Science and Education 9:219–246, 2000). The results show that even though basic reasoning in astrobiology is known by a majority of the students, there is a considerable number of students, for whom this is not the case. Furthermore, it was found that for all questions, there are students answering in different ways when asked to describe their own view and the view they associate with science researchers. The implications of the study for further research and for the teaching of astrobiology in science class are discussed.

Alte und neue Gottheit

Abstract The article discusses if opposing ideologies use the same conceptional means and structures. The comparison of theistic and modern world views shows that they have similar aims. Both world views claim power via universal explanations and assert their own moral superiority. Atheism thus remains tied to theism and has itself an implicit metaphysics.

Model for the Development of Science and Humanities Curriculum in Islamic Universities

This paper elaborates the model for the curriculum development of science and humanities for Islamic university. The model is based on the theory of worldview, the process of which begins from learning life structure, world structure and extends to the concept of knowledge, human and value. The last three concepts are sought at university level, yet the curriculum at this level should be directed, at the first place towards scientific mentality. Therefore, students should acquire skills and know-how as well as critical thinking to reach such mentality , rather than to give huge load of courses unnecessarily . With those principles action plan for the curriculum development of our universities should be as follows: Two or three courses at introductory level; Two or three required courses in sub-fields of the students; Two or three elective course in the field of the student; Two courses in Islamic scientific tradition; One or two courses in the methodology and logic of Islamic scientific tradition; Two courses in the philosophy and adab of Islamic scientific tradition; The rest are elective courses such as logic, and introductory courses in philosophy and sociology . To be conversant of Islamic scientific tradition, for example student should be given a good grounding in the history of Islamic scientific tradition. The course to be given for this purpose is not a simple history of science in Islamic civilization; it is rather a course which is designed to teach the historical continuity of Islamic scientific tradition.

Ergodic Hypothesis and Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics in the Quantum Mechanical World View

In this paper, we study and answer the following fundamental problems concerning classical equilibrium statistical mechanics: 1): Is the principle of equal a priori probabilities indispensable for equilibrium statistical mechanics? 2): Is the ergodic hypothesis related to equilibrium statistical mechanics? Note that these problems are not yet answered, since there are several opinions for the formulation of equilibrium statistical mechanics. In order to answer the above questions, we first introduce measurement theory (i.e., the theory of quantum mechanical world view), which is characterized as the linguistic turn of quantum mechanics. And we propose the measurement theoretical foundation of equili-brium statistical mechanics, and further, answer the above 1) and 2), that is, 1) is “No”, but, 2) is “Yes”.

A Measurement Theoretical Foundation of Statistics

It is a matter of course that Kolmogorov’s probability theory is a very useful mathematical tool for the analysis of statistics. However, this fact never means that statistics is based on Kolmogorov’s probability theory, since it is not guaranteed that mathematics and our world are connected. In order that mathematics asserts some statements concerning our world, a certain theory (so called “world view”) mediates between mathematics and our world. Recently we propose measurement theory (i.e., the theory of the quantum mechanical world view), which is characterized as the linguistic turn of quantum mechanics. In this paper, we assert that statistics is based on measurement theory. And, for example, we show, from the pure theoretical point of view (i.e., from the measurement theoretical point of view), that regression analysis can not be justified without Bayes’ theorem. This may imply that even the conventional classification of (Fisher’s) statistics and Bayesian statistics should be reconsidered.

Monty Hall Problem and the Principle of Equal Probability in Measurement Theory

In this paper, we study the principle of equal probability (i.e., unless we have sufficient reason to regard one possible case as more probable than another, we treat them as equally probable) in measurement theory (i.e., the theory of quantum mechanical world view), which is characterized as the linguistic turn of quantum mechanics with the Copenhagen interpretation. This turn from physics to language does not only realize theremarkable extensionof quantum mechanicsbut alsoestablish the method of science. Our study will be executed in the easy example of the Monty Hall problem. Although our argument is simple, we believe that it is worth pointing out the fact that the principle of equal probability can be, for the first time, clarified in measurement theory (based on the dualism) and not the conventional statistics (based on Kolmogorov’s probability theory).

Intelligent Design Creationism and the Mechanisms of Postmodernity

Abstract: This article provides a critical reading of Intelligent Design proponents' attempt to create a wedge in secular society to reinsert a theistic worldview. It argues they assert their wedge via the mechanisms of postmodernity: following Frederic Jameson, those informational elements of mass culture that allow them to present their ideas as an alternate to that posed by evolutionary biology. It centres on a representation (by the philosopher of science Robert Pennock) of Intelligent Design advocate, Philip E. Johnson as a postmodern thinker. This article revises Pennock, claiming that while Johnson does attack modern science in his project to champion Intelligent Design, Johnson is not a representative of many precepts of postmodernity. In particular, this chapter reads Johnson as clearly supporting a Christian metanarrative. Moreover, Johnson is a representative of a strategy formulated by the conservative organization, The Discovery Institute, and their campaign called the Wedge Strategy. Exemplified by an internal document leaked to the internet, “The Wedge” is a clearly explicated strategy to combat secular society.

Odpowiednie dać rzeczy słowo, czyli rozważania na temat ekwiwalencji konotacyjnej w świetle teorii językowego obrazu świata

Odpowiednie dać rzeczy słowo, czyli rozważania na temat ekwiwalencji konotacyjnej w świetle teorii językowego obrazu świata

The Challenge of Academic Freedom

Advancement of all fonns of knowledge depends on the right to freely search for the truth and the unhindered ability to disseminate the results. For this reason, academic freedom is universally regarded as a central requirement of a free society and a prerequisite for social and scientific advancement Although college instructors are considered to have more academic freedom than high school teachers, litigation does not support this claim in the area of religious speech. There is little difference in legal rulings at any academic level. In all cases when information interpreted as favorable to a theistic worldview was presented in the classroom, the ruling went against the instructor, while in all cases critical of Intelligent Design and/or theism, U. S. courts ruled in favor of the teacher In all cases it was the teacher who appealed to the courts claiming that academic freedom was denied, not the institution. Ruling that academic freedom does not reside in the teacher, but rather in the institution, goes against the very definition and purpose of academic freedom.

Using Protistan Examples to Dispel the Myths of Intelligent Design

In recent years the teaching of the religiously based philosophy of intelligent design (ID) has been proposed as an alternative to modern evolutionary theory. Advocates of ID are largely motivated by their opposition to naturalistic explanations of biological diversity, in accordance with their goal of challenging the philosophy of scientific materialism. Intelligent design has been embraced by a wide variety of creationists who promote highly questionable claims that purport to show the inadequacy of evolutionary theory, which they consider to be a threat to a theistic worldview. We find that examples from protistan biology are well suited for providing evidence of many key evolutionary concepts, and have often been misrepresented or roundly ignored by ID advocates. These include examples of adaptations and radiations that are said to be statistically impossible, as well as examples of speciation both in the laboratory and as documented in the fossil record. Because many biologists may not be familiar with the richness of the protist evolution dataset or with ID-based criticisms of evolution, we provide examples of current ID arguments and specific protistan counter-examples.

Effects of Worldview and Mortality Salience in Persuasion Processes

Individual differences in media effects research have yielded a trove of insights into how media content can have varying effects. One such variable is worldview—a philosophy of life that enables a person to make sense of one's experience—but the notion has largely been unexamined in media effects research. A person's worldview can moderate the way a persuasive message is processed—sometimes in the opposite direction of that intended by communicators. Building on the construct of worldview and terror management theory, two experiments (N = 149 and N = 151) examined the question with worldview as a measured variable and mortality salience as a two-level factor. Worldview had a main effect on global evaluations of ads, as participants who tended toward a relativist worldview had lower evaluations of the ads and lower behavioral intentions, while participants who tended toward a positivist worldview had higher evaluations of the ads and higher behavioral intentions. Also, mortality salience was found to moderate participants' worldview, presumably making their worldview more accessible to exert a greater influence. The importance of worldview as a construct in media effects research, as well as theoretical implications for persuasion and terror management theory, are discussed.

God Makes a World of Difference: The Dialectic of Motivation and Meaning at the Creation of an African Theistic Worldview

Worldview as a way to understand Christianity (Naugel 2002) and competing accounts of reality (Sire 1997, 2004) focuses on cognitive, rational structures of meaning. But how are worldviews created? What is the relationship of cognition to historical contingency and psychological motivation? To answer these questions, I present original research on the thoughts of Emilio Mulolani Chishimba, founder of Zambia's Mutima Church, and view them through the lens of Charles W. Nuckolls' (1996) theory of culture and myth formation. Missiologists are better prepared to engage the world when they understand the nexus of factors that create specific worldviews.

Science, Worldviews, and Education

Whether science can reach conclusions with substantial worldview import, such as whether supernatural beings exist or the universe is purposeful, is a significant but unsettled aspect of science. For instance, various scientists, philosophers, and educators have explored the implications of science for a theistic worldview, with opinions spanning the spectrum from positive to neutral to negative. To delineate a mainstream perspective on science, seven key characterizations or “pillars” of science are adopted from position papers from the world’s largest scientific organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Based on those pillars and an examination of scientific method, I argue that the presuppositions and reasoning of science can and should be worldview independent, but empirical and public evidence from the sciences and humanities can support conclusions that are worldview distinctive. I also critique several problematic perspectives: asserting that science can say nothing about worldviews and the opposite extreme of insisting that science decisively supports one particular worldview; weakening science so severely that it lacks truth claims; and burdening science with unnecessary presuppositions. Worldview-distinctive conclusions based on empirical evidence are suitable for individual convictions and public discussions, but not for institutional endorsements and scientific literacy requirements.

Prehistory in the Call to Abraham

AbstractA common pool of primitive human values fuels the world's religions. These values are evident in classical religions and are found lying on the surface in the book of Genesis, which is among the Bible's richest archetypal repositories. The Genesis pre-history focuses on human well-being. The mythological assumptions underlying this story manifest the rudiments of human thought and experience laid down in the archaic period. A hostile natural environment evokes behaviour to overcome its hazards. The narrative explores the mythological options of agency for achieving human well-being. As in other theistic worldviews two primary agencies are envisioned. Gods and humans, each with strengths and weaknesses, are potential protagonists on the stage of human optimism. Genesis inherits a southwest Asian cosmogony in which the gods are hostile to the advanced potential of collective human agency. Divine hostility complicates agency options, leading to a devotional compromise in the form of God's covenant with Abraham. The essay suggests the value of a renewed awareness of the influence of archaic human experience on the classical literature of ancient Israel. The argument is developed with reference to the traditional figure of Abraham.

World view theory and the conceptualisation of space in mathematics education

The cornerstone of current education trends that recognise prior knowledge as fundamental to the learning process, is the notion that beliefs and experiences that learners bring to the classroom influence their learning experiences in the classroom (Cobern, Gibson and Underwood, 1999). World view research in science education has proved an important tool in unravelling learners’ beliefs and perceptions in an attempt to better understand what experiences they bring to a classroom situation. Cobern (1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997) has successfully spearheaded much of the world view research in that field, with particular emphasis on learners’ perceptions and understanding of nature.

IS security, trust and culture: a theoretical framework for managing IS security in multicultural settings

System security today focuses on the design of safe and secure information systems and their operation. In the analysis of any information system, whether small or large, one observes within it a “set of human activities related to each other so they can be viewed as a whole”. If one particularly focuses on security aspects of large information systems, and then considers the many layers of complexity comprising the human activity systems within them, it becomes apparent that one of these layers, or subsystems, is a cultural one. This paper proposes that the perspective gained on the impact of culture in such a system by the application of a systems theory, augmented by perspectives supplied by worldview theory, is helpful in designing appropriate learning, e‐commerce or other kinds of distributed environments for multicultural settings.

Conceptualizing spirituality in social work: How the metaphysical beliefs of social workers may foster bias toward theistic consumers

Abstract In spite of the growing interest in spirituality, little attention has been paid to how social workers’ metaphysical worldviews affect their conceptualization and subsequent operationalization of spirituality. This paper explores how the largely nontheistic worldviews of social workers inform their definitions of spirituality, which in turn fosters a systemic bias against the spirituality of consumers who hold theistic belief systems. Examples of how current definitions conflict with a theistic worldview are provided, and it is suggested that the operationalization of existing conceptualizations would yield biased measures that would preas‐sign theistic consumers a lower level of spirituality. Suggestions for addressing the problem conclude the paper.

The Pleistocene Mind: A Critical Review of Evolutionary Psychology, and an Introduction to Intelligent Design Psychology

Researchers and scientists in evolutionary psychology, a new theoretical perspective within the field of psychology, have proposed striking insights into human behavior based on our long evolutionary past. These insights and proposals have gained support over the past decade among psychologists, but they have also been roundly criticized. According to proponents, the field of evolutionary psychology seeks to synthesize modern evolutionary theory with the latest psychological findings, informed by the field of evolutionary biology. This new field of evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered insights about our universal human nature, pointing to our supposed millions of years of evolution during the Pleistocene era as the main designer of our minds. Evolutionary psychologists point to such universal phenomenon as feelings of shame, cheater-detectors, standards for female beauty, mate selection, and child abuse by step-fathers as evidence for specialized brain circuits that were designed by evolution. Adapted to a life on the savannas, the human mind is composed of these functionally specialized circuits, and to fully understand behavior today we must understand the pressures of savanna life. Critics of this new discipline, including philosophers, scientists, and evolutionary biologists, have responded with serious counterpoints. This article provides a brief overview of the field and the arguments brought against EP, including evaluating both the empirical evidence and the theoretical underpinnings. Implications for those favoring a theistic world-view are also discussed, and an introduction is given to a new field called Intelligent Design Psychology.

MacIntyre on Morality

As Alasdair MacIntyre sees the matter, moral discourse in the sense in which it once existed has broken down. This may be illustrated by numerous issues debated in contemporary society, none of which is in the nature of the case capable of being settled. Once there was a generally-accepted theistic world-view in which human beings had in general terms a definite direction or aim in life; against that background there were clear criteria for settling moral disputes. Since the Enlightenment this has no longer been so. It is true that ‘in everyday discourse the habit of speaking of moral judgments as true or false persists; but the question of what it is in virtue of which a particular moral judgment is true or false has come to lack any clear answer’. This is because ‘moral judgments are linguistic survivals from the practices of classical theism which have lost the context provided by these practices’. Many efforts have been made, by Utilitarians, Kantians and others, to plug the gap; but they have all failed.