Textbooks are the first introduction to science education for most people, but they don’t convey the true process of scientific research. Science advances not through accumulated knowledge, but through innovation and paradigm shifts, and this requires an education that includes the history of science and the process of scientific inquiry.
How were you first introduced to science? Most of us first encounter science in school and receive a large part of our science education through school, and textbooks are at the center of our science education. But what if the textbooks that first introduce us to science and set us on the path to science are not really showing us what science is really like? In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn writes, “Textbooks often give the impression that the content of science is uniquely exemplified by the observations, laws, and theories described in them. Almost without exception, these books are read as telling us that the scientific method is simply a set of manipulative techniques used to gather data and logical manipulations applied in the process of relating that data to the theoretical generalizations of the textbook.” Textbooks don’t show us what science really looks like, and that means they don’t teach us about real scientific research methods. What are the important aspects of real scientific research that textbooks don’t show us?
First, let’s look at what textbooks do show. Textbooks only give you a snapshot of the theory they’re trying to explain: they tell you about the phenomena they explain, or the formulas they use, or how scientists experiment, but they don’t tell you how the theory relates to other theories of its time, how scientific experiments originated, or how the theory or experiment has influenced science. This gives you the impression that the emergence of a theory or a new discovery came out of nowhere, as if Newton saw an apple on the ground and suddenly came up with the law of universal gravitation.
But that’s not the history of real science and textbook theories. Thomas Kuhn argues that scientific progress and the emergence of new theories are achieved through several steps. First, scientific research is conducted within the existing paradigm; second, anomalies appear that cannot be explained by the existing paradigm; third, research is conducted outside of the existing paradigm to explain the anomalies; and finally, the results of the research give rise to more advanced paradigms and theories that can explain the anomalies. In other words, specific scientific theories do not appear out of nowhere independently, but are interrelated to the scientific paradigms and theories of the time.
It’s important to understand this through the history of science. By learning the history of science, you can see how scientists have developed different ideas and discoveries. This history helps us understand how the scientific theories we are currently learning about have evolved. It also gives us important insights into discovering and developing new paradigms in future scientific research.
The best example of this is quantum mechanics. Textbooks simply explain that light is a photon and therefore exhibits many of the properties of both waves and particles. But in the history of science, quantum mechanics didn’t just happen. In the early 18th century, Newton argued for a particle theory of light, which became the paradigm of the time. But in the early 19th century, the work of Thomas Young and Fresnel led to the idea that light is a transverse wave, which was compelling enough to overturn the existing paradigm. Then, in the early 20th century, scientists like Planck and Einstein discovered the duality of light, and the paradigm shifted once more, leading to the current theory that light is a quantum mechanical entity that exhibits both wave and particle properties as photons.
The way textbooks are presented is effective for learning and mastering the content of a particular theory, so they fulfill the basic role of textbooks in introducing newcomers to science and giving them a basic understanding of what scientific thinking is all about. But science education shouldn’t stop there. Today’s science educated people are the ones who need to discover and formulate new theories, just like the scientists in the textbooks. The political scientist and historian E. H. Carr once said, “History is a constant dialog between the past and the present.” The history of science – the process by which previous scientific theories have been formulated and brought to us today – can guide us in how we think, conduct research, and view existing paradigms in order to contribute to scientific progress in the future.
Through the history of science, we learn that science has progressed not simply by the accumulation of theories, but by revolutionary changes that often break the mold. These revolutionary changes are accomplished by overturning existing concepts and proposing new paradigms. Thomas Kuhn argues that science advances not by accumulation but by revolutionary methods. His structure of scientific revolutions provides important insights into understanding how science advances.
And, as I mentioned in the introduction, textbooks don’t show that revolution, but rather the logical manipulation of data to relate it to the theoretical generalizations of the textbook – normal science. Those who have not seen revolutions in science in this way may be intimidated by the idea of starting an entirely new scientific revolution, but those who see in textbooks that the history of science has been through such revolutions may be more willing to engage in revolutionary thinking.
We have seen what textbooks show and don’t show about science, and the problems that may arise because they don’t show it. It will be difficult to start a scientific revolution with only the content of theories shown in current textbooks. Therefore, in order to achieve effective scientific development, in addition to the content of textbook theories, it will be necessary to add content on the history of science so that students can learn the process of establishing scientific theories and the process of paradigm shifts through textbooks.
In addition, science education shouldn’t just be about transmitting knowledge. It should be a process of learning how scientists think and research, and what we can learn from their failures and successes. In this way, textbooks should provide a deeper understanding of the nature of science and the process of scientific inquiry, and help students become more excited and challenged by science. This approach to education will help students develop the ability to think creatively and critically.
In conclusion, textbooks play an important role in understanding the basic theories and principles of science, but they alone cannot fully convey the true picture of science. Therefore, it is important to include the history of science in textbooks and teach the process of scientific innovation and paradigm shifts. This will help students understand that science is not just an accumulation of knowledge, but has evolved through constant exploration and innovation.
