Volume X Fall 1998 #1

Cultural perspectives and the nature of science

by Jack Barden

In a classroom along the Missouri River, Indian children study a unit about the river, learning how to analyze water quality and at the same time learning that the river is mni wiconi, the water of life. In still another classroom children learn that a root that their people have used for centuries as a curative contains chemicals that are "really" what is doing the healing. In still another classroom, the configuration of tepee poles is being used to teach students about how structures use tension to make them strong.

These approaches illustrate the fact that there are several major models that are used to integrate culture into science. The first approach shows children that both the Native and Western cultures have something to offer. The second one uses Western science to validate the things that Native people have known for eons. The third makes use of cultural knowledge as a vehicle to teach Western Science. While these are valid and important, they do not reach the heart of cultural differences in science. These differences run deeper.

So there is a need for yet another approach that looks more at the nature and methods of science rather than its content. The national science standards for K-12 schools say that all children should know that science is a human endeavor and should have a historical perspective on science. The framers of these standards clearly had in mind only the Western version of science.

We must add (and can add as reservations develop their own standards) that students should also have a cultural perspective on science. In order to deal with that standard, we need to look at science as something that is done -- a process. In order to do the work that scientists do, we must engage in the process of (a) asking questions of the natural world, (b) observing that world in systematic ways to find answers, (c) doing something with the results of those observations, and (d) deciding what the answer to our question is.

Each of these steps in the scientific process can be done differently in different cultures. Questions are different and the methods used to observe the natural world, do something with results, and decide meanings are probably different as well.

A question, for instance, that could be asked from both a Western and Native American perspective is, "What can this rock be used for?" Western science has a prescribed set of tests to run on a rock (as anyone who has taken freshman geology knows): hardness, color, chemical composition. These are the observations that geology makes of one part of the natural world. The results of the observations are classified using the Mohs scale and other knowledge that is common to geologists. The conclusion that is drawn might be that the rock is granitic and can be used for building.

A Native observer asking the same question might come to a different conclusion. Observations of that rock could include heating it ceremonially for the sweat lodge and finding shapes that have meaning in the glowing rock. The observer might note that the rock calls forth spirits. The conclusion of this observer might be that the rock is a member of the oldest family on earth and that it has a good deal to teach us.

This example of the rock illustrates the dilemma. Which is it? Granite? Or a member of the rock nation? Is one of these approaches "science" and the other not? Western science has as one of its most revered principles the Aristotelean notion of "the excluded middle." This doctrine tells us that the rock must be one thing or the other. It cannot be both. The Native view is likely to take a more tolerant stance and say that the rock surely can be granite, but it is also a member of the rock nation. Western scientists might also say that it is all right to think of the rock as a member of the nation during ceremonies, but "really" it is granite.

How is it that members of two cultures can arrive at such radically different answers to essentially the same question? It is probably not possible to answer that question completely, but the answer lies in (a) the assumptions of the cultures and (b) the kinds of input that can be called data.

Western culture holds an assumption that puts all material things in a hierarchy with man at the top, descending through other animals, plants, and moving to the lowliest of materials - rocks. This assumption makes it possible to view the rock as an object with no life or spirit and leads to a materialist conclusion. Native cultures are more likely to hold that all creation is equal and that all the beings (including rocks) are related. Given these assumptions, it is also quite probable that observers from different cultures deal with data differently. The categories of Western science are often clearly defined - the Mohs scale, for instance, gives rocks numbers based on their hardness, which are determined using well-defined methods. A Native scientist could very well obtain data from sources that Western science says are not real data sources: dreams and visions, for instance. The data that comes from sources like these are very different from that which comes from material sources and falls into entirely different categories upon analysis.

The challenge is helping children to understand Western science in order to take their rightful place in the modern world while at the same time understanding Native ways of handling information. And perhaps the biggest challenge of all is helping children to know that the two ways of knowing are equally valid and equally useful. The operative word is different, not better or worse.

Science specialists and people with deep cultural knowledge need to join each other in approaching this issue. Each group must relate to the other group and their methods in a respectful way. This kind of collaboration can lead to a deeper understanding of what science is and how to integrate culture into science in another way.

Jack Barden has worked at more than half of the 31 tribal colleges, beginning in 1971 at United Tribes. In 1973 he helped found Standing Rock Community College (now Sitting Bull College). Currently he is the Associate Director for Higher Education Program Development of the North Dakota Association of Tribal Colleges. He earned a Ph.D. in counseling from the University of North Dakota in 1970 and completed course work for a M.A. in history at the University of North Dakota in 1986.

NOTE: Jack Barden died in 2001.