Page 159 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

136 B.D. Rowe

Conclusion

Rollin believes most scientists are not educated: “We do not educate scientists or
physicians to be virtuous citizens, we train them in a technocratic way” (p. 31).
Notice the distinction he makes between what it means to “educate” and what it
means to “train.” Training is merely preparation and instruction, mechanistic and
highly controlled. While beneficial for mastering a specific skill-set, training is
antithetical to dialogue, to synthesis, to the interdisciplinary approach incumbent
upon ecojustice educators in teaching socioscientific literacy. Education, on the
other hand, involves questioning, contextual analysis, discernment, and conversa-
tion. It furnishes the conceptual and practical conditions that cultivate the faculties
of reason and imagination for a deep ethical and aesthetic appreciation for the
ecological – that is, the relational – elements of our world. Whether we believe
bioengineering is immoral or not, we cannot stop it. That does not mean that we are
utterly powerless. Our power is education. The hope for a more humane science lies
in our appetite and adeptness to engage in science education with the holistic fashion
that ecojustice – indeed, that human experience – calls for.

Acknowledgments I thank Bryan R. Warnick for his thoughtful comments on previous drafts of
this response.

References

Cavalieri, P., & Singer, P. (1994). The great ape project: Equality beyond humanity. New York: St.
Martin’s Press.
Habermas, J. (1990). Moral consciousness and communicative action. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kant, I. (1785/1981). Grounding for the metaphysics of morals. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Mueller, M. P. (2009). Educational reflections on the “ecological crisis”: Ecojustice, environmen-
talism, and sustainability. Science & Education, 18, 1031–1056.
Regan, T. (1983). The case for animal rights. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rollin, B. (1995). The Frankenstein syndrome: Ethical and social issues in the genetic engineering
of animals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rousseau, J. J. (1762/1979). Emile: or, on education. New York: Basic Books.
Shannon, T. (2000). Made in whose image? Genetic engineering and Christian ethics. Amherst:
Prometheus Books.
Smith, K. R. (2003). Animal genetic manipulation: A utilitarian response. In S. J. Armstrong &
R. G. Botzler (Eds.), The animal ethics reader (pp. 323–331). New York: Routledge.
Troyer, J. (Ed.). (2003). The classical utilitarians: Bentham and Mill. Indianapolis: Hackett.