An argument that what makes science distinctive is its emphasis on evidence and scientists' willingness to change theories on the basis of new evidence. Attacks on science have become commonplace. Claims that climate change isn't settled science, that evolution is “only a theory,” and that scientists are conspiring to keep the truth about vaccines from the public are staples of some politicians' rhetorical repertoire. Defenders of science often point to its discoveries (penicillin! relativity!) without explaining exactly why scientific claims are superior. In this book, Lee McIntyre argues that what distinguishes science from its rivals is what he calls “the scientific attitude”—caring about evidence and being willing to change theories on the basis of new evidence. The history of science is littered with theories that were scientific but turned out to be wrong; the scientific attitude reveals why even a failed theory can help us to understand what is special about science. McIntyre offers examples that illustrate both scientific success (a reduction in childbed fever in the nineteenth century) and failure (the flawed “discovery” of cold fusion in the twentieth century). He describes the transformation of medicine from a practice based largely on hunches into a science based on evidence; considers scientific fraud; examines the positions of ideology-driven denialists, pseudoscientists, and “skeptics” who reject scientific findings; and argues that social science, no less than natural science, should embrace the scientific attitude. McIntyre argues that the scientific attitude—the grounding of science in evidence—offers a uniquely powerful tool in the defense of science.

First published in 1941 (this edition in 1968), this book explores the relationship between science, culture, and society- focusing on human beings, and human communities. Here, C. H. Waddington uses the concept of science to mean more than factual information about genes and haemoglobin and his subject is the effect of scientific ways of speaking on the ways in which people look at the world around them. The work discusses biological assumptions made by various communities, particularly fascist movements, on human beings and compares them with the scientific attitude. The Nazis for instance spoke about ‘racial purity’ and ‘German blood’ but these expressions, whilst arousing emotion, had, and have, no rational meaning- they are inaccurate and tell us nothing of human genetics. As well as presenting a scientific argument, being published initially in 1941, this book also acts as a historical document, conveying some of the feeling of living through WWII. It highlights the fact that science and scientific assumptions have very wide implications for the whole conduct of life.

The research into how students’ attitudes affect their learning of science related subjects has been one of the core areas of interest by science educators. The development in science education records various attempts in measuring attitudes and determining the correlations between behavior, achievements, career aspirations, gender identity and cultural inclination. Some researchers noted that attitudes can be learned and teachers can encourage students to like science subjects through persuasion. But some view that attitude is situated in context and has much to do with upbringing and environment. The critical role of attitude is well recognized in advancing science education, in particular designing curriculum and choosing powerful pedagogies and nurturing students. Since Noll’s (1935) seminal work on measuring the scientific attitudes, a steady stream of research papers describing the development and validation of scales have appeared in scholarly publications. Despite these efforts, the progress in this area has been stagnated by limited understanding of the conception of attitude, dimensionality and inability to determine the multitude of variables that made up such concept. This book makes an attempt to take stock and critically examine classical views on science attitudes and explore contemporary attempts in measuring science-related attitudes. The chapters in this book are a reflection of researchers who work tirelessly in promoting science education and highlight the current trends and future scenarios in attitude measurement.

THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE presents a systematic account of the cognitive and social features of science. Written by an experimental biologist actively engaged in research, the work is unique in its attempt to understand science in terms of day-to-day practice. The book goes beyond the traditional description of science that focuses on method and logic to characterize the scientific attitude as a way of looking at the world. Professor Grinnell uses examples from biomedical research to describe science at three interdependent levels. At the first level, the individual scientist makes observations, formulates hypotheses, and does experiments. The scientist's thought style determines what can be seen and what it will appear to mean. At the second level, scientists participate in social institutions such as graduate programs, research groups, journal editorial boards, and grant review panels. Each of these institutions tries to promote its own distinctive collective thought style. Finally, at the third level, scientists participate in the world of everyday life beyond science, a world that continuously influences and is influenced by the activities and discoveries of science.

Written by two world-leading academics in the field of attitudes research, is a brand new textbook that gets to the very heart of this fascinating and far-reaching field. Greg Maio and Geoffrey Haddock describe how scientific methods have been used to better understand attitudes and how they change. With the aid of a few helpful metaphors, the text provides readers with a grasp of the fundamental concepts for understanding attitudes and an appreciation of the scientific challenges that lay ahead.

The Science of Attitudes is the first book to integrate classic and modern research in the field of attitudes at a scholarly level. Designed primarily for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, the presentation of research will also be useful for current scholars in all disciplines who are interested in how attitudes are formed and changed. The treatment of attitudes is both thorough and unique, taking a historical approach while simultaneously highlighting contemporary views and controversies. The book traces attitudes research from the inception of scientific study following World War II to the issues and methods of research that are prominent features of today’s research. Researchers in the field of attitudes will be particularly interested in classic and modern research on the organization, structure, strength and function of attitudes. Researchers in the field of persuasion will be particularly interested in work on attitude change focusing on propositional and associative learning, metacognition and dynamic theories of dissonance, balance and reactance. The book is designed to present the integration of the properties of the attitude with the dynamic considerations of attitude change. The Science of Attitudes is also the first book on attitudes to devote entire chapters to work on implicit measurements, resistance to persuasion, and social neuroscience.

Contents: Educational Aspirations and Scientific Attitudes: The Problem and Its Significance, Related Research, Research Procedure, Analysis of Data, Conclusions, Discussions and Suggestions.