Arguing from Nature: The role of ‘nature’ in students’ argumentations on a socio-scientific issue

Abstract

This paper explores how students invoked different conceptions of ‘nature’ in eight socio-scientific group discussions about human gene therapy. The paper illustrates and discusses how the students articulated nature and to what extent they elicited science factual content in the process. While the students in this study invoked nature at key places in a variety of dialectical contexts in the discussions, these invocations were often uncritical appeals and rarely involved science factual content. Even when an argument from nature was challenged, the author of that argument would often shift the sense of nature rather than elaborate upon the argumentation. It is argued that if students were properly introduced to the evaluative character of the term ‘nature’ it would not just be conducive to the quality of their argumentation, but also invite them to foreground science factual content at key places in their discussion.

Keywords:

• Nature
• Socio-scientific issues
• Argumentation
• Biology education

Acknowledgements

My deepest thanks are due to Xavier Fazio, Morten Rask Petersen, Marianne Foss Mortensen, and the anonymous reviewers – all your comments have greatly improved this paper.

Notes

Govier (2010) does not distinguish between ‘nature’ and ‘natural’. In her treatment, the different usages of the adjective ‘natural’ appear to correspond to different usages of the noun ‘nature’ a similar approach is taken here.

This amounts to a sort of scorekeeping: If a speaker at one point says that ‘all kinds of genetic engineering should be banned’ then that speaker would also be committed to hold that ‘genetic engineering on plants should be banned’. If the speaker later would state that ‘genetic engineering on plants could be allowed’, then that would be interpreted as a concession.

It is unclear what Angelica referred to by ‘right of nature’ (Danish: naturens ret). She may have referred to the right of the potential beneficiaries of germ-line gene therapy; but since her interlocutors did not at that early stage ask her to elaborate, her initial reference is unclear at best.