Friday, January 27, 2006

The gender perspective of landing on the moon

The South Australian curriculum describes Western science as "the most dominant form of science but it is only one form among the sciences of the world", while in the Northern Territory science is treated "as a way of knowing ... constructed in a socio-cultural context". While the traditional view of science is based on absolutes that can be empirically tested, the West Australian curriculum says truth is culturally determined.
"(Students) recognise that aspects of scientific knowledge are constructed from a particular gender or cultural perspective," it says.
When you are being blasted towards the moon with 40,000 tons of fuel under your bum; when you read this message on a worldwide network of over a billion computers; when you look at an image of your unborn baby produced by bouncing sound waves off your innards; when you switch on a light or do do any of a thousand things we do every day, what exactly is the cultural or gender perspective you adopt to benefit from it?
See the article in The Australian about science syllabuses.

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