Nature-of-Science Literacy in Benchmarks and Standards: Post-Modern/Relativist or Modern/Realist?

The complexity of science is described in the two major science education reform documents in the US: Benchmarks for Science Literacy (1993) and National Science Education Standards (1996). Some have seen them as too ‘postmodern’ while others have charged they are too ‘modern’ in their descriptions of the nature of science.An analysis of the documents shows how each charge might arise. Science's complexity requires one to say that ‘scientific knowledge is tentative or subject to change’ and ‘scientific knowledge is stable'; that ‘change is a persistent feature of science’ and ‘continuity is a persistent feature of science'; that ‘it is normal for scientists to differ with one another’ and ‘scientists work toward consensus'. Both Benchmarks andStandards describe science in terms that sometimes seem to emphasize tentative, local knowledge while at other times emphasizing stable, universal knowledge. Although the overall picture of science presented by each document appears to be one of modern realism, it is not difficult to see how the postmodern relativist could select statements thatpaint science as epistemically equivalent to the social sciences or even the arts and humanities. Implications for science education are discussed.