科學教育有助於消除迷信嗎？

Abstract

本研究的目的在釐清科學教育與思考統整性的發展之關係。假如科學教育使人趨於理性，則隨著科學教育年限的增長，迷信式思考便會逐步削弱，而思考的統整性則會越來越強，這也是科學教育有助於破除迷信的真正意涵。本研究針對小、中、大學生，以三個實驗分別去釐清他們對命相、風水、鬼神三類議題的思考之統整程度。每個實驗呈現兩個故事，每個故事均包含一個關於命相／風水／鬼神的說法，但兩故事的說法是彼此矛盾的。參與者須以五點量表表示他對每個說法的接受度。三個實驗結果非常類似，不論是關於命相、風水或鬼神議題的思考，隨著受教育年限的增長，參與者對這些說法的接受度趨於下降。然而，參與者對兩個矛盾說法的反應相關係數卻顯示，參與者的思考是局部統整的，而且此局部統整現象遍通於命相、風水與鬼神類議題的思考，並隨教育年限的增長而趨於明顯。換句話說，偏重科學知識的科學教育，除了明顯增進受教育者懷疑精神外，在思考上，並未能成功的教導最重要的科學理性─思考統整。

The main purpose of this study was to understand the relationship between science education and development of global coherence in thinking. To devise successful science education, it is necessary to consider both scientific knowledge and scientific thinking. The crucial point of scientific thinking is to achieve global coherence in thinking instead of local coherence which involves conflicts in thinking. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of science education on diluting superstitious thinking in terms of local coherence in thinking. Three experiments were designed to investigate the coherence in thinking of elementary school, middle/high school, and college students in the fields of physiognomy, supernaturalism, and geomancy, respectively. In each experiment, two stories depicting the same unusual events with conflicting paranormal explanations were presented. The participants were asked to rate their acceptance of each explanation in a five point scale. Similar results were found in the three experiments: (1) Participants' acceptance of paranormal explanations decreases with age; (2) However, the correlation between participants' two responses to the two conflicting explanations suggests local coherence in participants' thinking. And such local coherence in thinking increases with age. In other words, science education with focus on science knowledge has not successfully taught student global coherence in thinking, which is the most important part of science reasoning.