Goethe’s Delicate Empiricism
Research team:
Faculty: Dr. Sherrie Reynolds and Dr. Molly Weinburgh
Graduate students: Lisa Bellows and Suzanne Reid
Project
Our current work with pre-service teachers in a science methods course
is based on Goethe’s (1749 -1832, German poet and scientists)
approach to the study of nature called delicate empiricism and Kuhn’s
(1922- 1996, American historian and philosopher of science), ideas
paradigms and evolutionary/revolutionary science. We suggest that
Goethe’s method of studying the natural world provides a way
of approaching science that honors mutuality, context, and relationship
and reunites a world that has become artificially fractured. Therefore,
we have created a model of science education that includes Goethe’s
approach to the study of nature and Kuhn’s idea of work within
a paradigm. This research is investigating students’ understanding
of a phenomenon after an extended investigation based on Goethe and
Kuhn.
Goethe reacted against the norm of his day and rejected a quantitative,
materialist approach to nature and emphasized, instead, that exploration
must be rooted in careful and prolonged observation of an empirical phenomenon. For
Goethe, direct experiential contact became the basis for scientific generalization
and understanding. He suggested that “scientific ideal is
to allow oneself to be transformed in following the transformations of
the phenomena” (Amrine, 1998, p. 37).
Thomas Kuhn (1962) suggested that ‘normal’ science is conducted
within a paradigm or model that has been agreed upon by members of the
scientific community. He suggests that ‘In the absence of
a paradigm, all of the facts that could possibly pertain to the development
of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant” (p. 15). He
continues by stating that ‘…early fact-gathering is a far
more nearly random activity…’ (p. 15).
We piloted the instructional sequence in 2006 with a cohort of 72 students
enrolled in an elementary science methods course. Revisions were
made to the instructional sequence and have been incorporated into the
methods course for the 2007 cohort. As we investigate pre-service
teachers’ understanding of a phenomenon and their change in thinking
during the term, we are also investigating using the same approach with
first grade students.
For more information contact Dr. Molly Weinburgh
References
Amrine, F. (1998). The metamorphosis of the scientist. In D. Seamon and
A. Zajonc (Eds). Goethe’s Way of Science. Albany:
State University of New York Press.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press