Teaching Theology and Religion, ISSN 1368-4868, 2003, vol. 6 no. 2, pp 99104.

Stacking the Deck to Teach Methodological Parallels in Science and Religion

Allen Gathman
Southeast Missouri State University

Andrew Pratt
William Jewell College

Abstract. This essay describes an introductory class exercise to help prepare students to critically examine both religious beliefs and scientic ndings. Using a published pedagogical exercise originally designed to teach Popperian falsicationism and modied to encompass a variety of schools of thought about hypothesis testing, the paper explores how groups of students utilized assigned philosophical approaches such as neojusticationism, falsicationism, or conventionalism. A description of the exercise and some of the learning outcomes are included.

Introduction
For the past decade, we have team-taught a science and religion course at a Midwestern public regional university, Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. During this time, one of us was a professor of biology, the other an assistant professor of philosophy and religion. The course is a part of the University Studies curriculum at our institution, a set of core courses organized around nine skills objectives (School of University Studies, 2002). The culmination of this program is the senior-level interdisciplinary seminar. Our course, UI415 Science and Religion (see Gathman and Pratt 2002), has been one of the senior seminar choices available annually to honors students since fall 1991. Students generally enter the class viewing science as objective and certain, and religion as subjective and idiosyncratic. In the text we use, Ian Barbour (1997) denes four ways in which the relationship between science and religion is commonly viewed. These are conict, independence, dialogue, and integration. If the methods and outcomes of science and religion were as clearly separated as students often think, only independence could really be argued. We want students at least to consider thoughtfully the possibilities of

dialogue and integration, and to do this they must rst realize that science is not so absolutely objective as they imagine. This realization opens the door to an understanding of some parallels in the ways that science and religion attempt to evaluate ideas. One way that we encourage students to recognize the subjective dimension of science is by discussing philosophy of science. Prerequisites for the course are general; students need only have completed the lower-level distribution requirements of the University Studies program. As a variety of courses satisfy each requirement, the students have no common scientic, theological, or philosophical background. While students usually enter the class with some understanding of the scientic method, they have had little formal exposure to ideas about the verication of hypotheses. Biology majors at our institution have generally been inculcated with Popperian falsicationism (see below); other students are often nave justicationists, assuming that scientists prove hypotheses to be true. We start by having the students read an excerpt from a text on philosophy of science that outlines the major points of several contemporary schools of thought about the relationship between hypotheses and data (Kourany, 1987).

Contemporary Schools of Thought Nave Justicationism

This is the view held early in the history of science. If a hypothesis makes a prediction, and that prediction turns out to be wrong, the hypothesis is false. If the hypothesis makes correct predictions, we can conclude that the hypothesis is true, or proven.

Neojusticationism
This view agrees with nave justication that if a hypothesis makes a prediction, and that prediction turns

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Gathman and Pratt leading to practical applications. Such successes seem to indicate that there is more to hypothesis choice than personal preference.

out upon testing to be wrong, the hypothesis is false. If the prediction turns out to be correct, however, the hypothesis merely has a higher probability of being true than it had before testing. Correct predictions never prove a hypothesis, because the scope of the hypothesis always extends beyond the tests made. Without testing every possible application, we cant be certain the hypothesis is right. Furthermore, if the hypothesis has such a limited scope that every application can be tested, once this has been done the hypothesis has no predictive value.

Lakatos
Imre Lakatos proposes a methodology of scientic research programs in which he recognizes the weaknesses of falsicationism, but provides criteria for deciding when it is appropriate to save the core hypothesis by modifying auxiliary hypotheses. He argues that an auxiliary hypothesis may be modied in response to new data if the resulting group of hypotheses (1) explains all the previous data, (2) accommodates the new, anomalous fact, and (3) predicts successfully at least one new fact. Such an approach is designed to ensure that a scientic research program continues to be productive rather than degenerating into constant rear-guard actions in response to anomalous data (Lakatos and Musgrave, 1970).

Falsicationism
Karl Popper originally proposed this interpretation of scientic hypothesis testing in 1965. As with neojusticationism, if the hypothesis makes a prediction that is wrong, the hypothesis is discarded. If it makes a prediction that is correct, though, this doesnt actually increase the likelihood that the hypothesis is true. The reasoning here is that the set of possible hypotheses that would t the data we have is so large that, even if we can eliminate some wrong ones, the remaining ones are effectively innite in number. All we can say about a hypothesis that makes correct predictions is that it hasnt been falsied yet.

Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn describes scientic research sociologically. His studies suggest that scientists do not actually make their choices among theories according to any simple algorithm, but rather apply ve major criteria; accuracy (agreement with data), consistency (coherence, both internal and with other accepted theories), scope (extent of predictive power), simplicity, and fruitfulness (power to predict new facts, lead to applications, and foster new lines of research). The weighting and application of these criteria are variable, so that different researchers may come to different conclusions from the same information (Kuhn, 1965). These schools have importance throughout the course, as Barbour argues for a version of Nancey Murphys application of Lakatos to Christian theology. Murphy holds that a theologian may hold to central tenets of Christian faith, analogous to Lakatos core hypothesis, while modifying peripheral tenets, analogous to Lakatos auxiliary hypotheses (Murphy, 1990). In the context of science and religion, we might revise some peripheral beliefs to accommodate wellestablished scientic ndings, while continuing to afrm the core beliefs of the tradition.

Conventionalism
Conventionalists hold that hypotheses are neither proven nor falsied by the outcomes of their predictions. A prediction is founded not on a single hypothesis, but on a bundle of hypotheses (Duhem, 1954). Say my car wont run, and my hypothesis is that its out of gas. From this hypothesis I predict that if I put some more gas in it and turn the key, it will start. The prediction rests not only on the stated hypothesis, but on several implied ones as well. Im assuming here that the liquid I get from the gas pump will actually be gas; that the ignition system is working; that no damage has occurred to the car because the tank ran dry; and so on. Thus even if we get a negative result, we cant be completely sure that my hypothesis wasnt right. We could modify one of these implied auxiliary hypotheses and save the main hypothesis, that I was out of gas. Conventionalists hold that scientists actually choose which hypothesis to believe based on a variety of criteria having nothing to do with agreement with data. These might include simplicity, coherence with other established theory, or more disturbingly, social or political biases. Naturally, working scientists dont care much for the conventionalist analysis of their methods. Kuhn (1965) and Lakatos (Lakatos and Musgrave, 1970) both recognize the difculty of clearly falsifying any hypothesis, but also note the well-known successes of science in

Pedagogical Exercise
The problem with teaching these philosophical views, particularly to students who have little philosophical background, is that they are quite abstract, and we will be asking the students to apply them to yet more abstract concepts as we discuss the ways in which ideas in religion are evaluated. What we want is for the students to develop ways to translate the abstract infor Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003

Stacking the Deck mation into practice. Secondly, we want the students to use the practice of science, in a very limited setting, to discover some general truths about scientic inquiry. In order to achieve these goals, we have adapted a published pedagogical exercise (Journet, 1993/1994). The original exercise was designed to teach Popperian falsicationism; we have modied it to encompass a variety of philosophical schools and illustrate their differences. The students read and summarize the preliminary material before class. In the 75-minute class period devoted to this exercise, we rst divide the students into groups. Each group is assigned one of the philosophical schools of thought listed above. The group members are asked rst to discuss their assigned school of hypothesis testing. After about 10 minutes, each group explains its assigned school to the class as a whole, and a brief discussion of each is used to ensure that the class members have a basic understanding of all the schools.

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card, we turn up a new card a new experimental result. Each group then re-evaluates each of its hypotheses according to the practices described in its school of thought. We ask the students to do this by group discussion rst, then to share their conclusions with the rest of the class. Then they make new predictions, taking into account any new hypotheses or modications that theyve made to old ones, and we turn up another card. In about 30 to 40 minutes, we repeat this process several times. Often the students become so demanding of more data that we abbreviate the discussion on later cycles.

Stacking the Deck

The instructor may stack the deck in a variety of ways, of course. A favorite of ours is to stack the deck so that at least two patterns are suggested in the rst few cards, only to have one or more of these fail later in the deck. For example: 8, K, 6, Q, 5, J, 3, K, 2, 4, 9, J, K. . . . This sequence starts out alternating suits, alternating number and face cards, and alternating red and black. The 5 of hearts falsies the alternating red and black hypothesis (assuming your view allows falsication). The 3 of hearts does not t the alternating suits hypothesis, even if the Lakatosians have modied an auxiliary hypothesis to allow the order of suits to vary. The alternating number and face card hypothesis doesnt t when the 4 of spades comes up. The only one that actually ts throughout the cards stacked is black, red, black, two reds, black, three reds, and so forth. Falsicationists and neojusticationists should have an easy time dealing with data that dont t the predictions, simply declaring the hypothesis false. In practice, groups practicing science according to these models nd this difcult. Well, it still alternates suits, its just that it goes heart, spade, diamond, club instead of heart, spade, club, diamond. Class discussion usually then explores what we mean by a new hypothesis as opposed to a modication of an auxiliary hypothesis. Even in this simple example, it soon becomes apparent what Duhem means when he says that hypotheses are tested in bundles. When a hypothesis makes a successful prediction, the neojusticationists are separated from the falsicationists. The falsicationists can still only say that their hypothesis might be true, while the neojusticationists conclude that their hypothesis is now more likely to be true. The conventionalists, confronted with data that does not match their prediction, end up having the most fun. That could be a club . . . the room seems kind of foggy, dont you think? I think it would be a club if we could get a really clear look at it. Clubs and spades are actually interchangeable in our hypothesis. I still say that

Setting the Stage

The instructor sets the stage for the class by reciting, I am Mother Nature, and this (holding up deck of cards) is my universe. I have ordered this universe, that is, I have stacked the deck in some sequence. You, as scientists, theologians, or philosophers, are charged with discovering the underlying order in this universe. Each group is asked to adopt the testing methodology described by its assigned school of thought. The instructor then reveals the rst two cards of the deck as preliminary observations. An oversized deck of cards (purchased at a local novelty store) is used so that the cards can be displayed in the front of the room.

Devising and Testing Hypotheses

We then ask the groups to devise hypotheses about the order of the entire deck. They are instructed to propose possible orders that would describe the sequence in the entire deck; that is, the cards alternate red and black is acceptable, but the next two cards are red is not. We supply a little background information about the universe; only standard cards are included (no green suits, stars, or jokers), and the deck is effectively innite (many copies of each card may exist). The groups devise a variety of hypotheses. We encourage each group to devise several different hypotheses, constrained only by the two initial observations. We ask groups to volunteer some of the hypotheses, which we write on the blackboard. The ensuing discussion helps the groups to get their hypotheses into the desired format, and may give them some ideas for additional hypotheses. Next, each group is asked to predict what the next card should be, based on each hypothesis. These predictions are also discussed with the class. Finally, after the groups have made predictions for each
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Gathman and Pratt esis testing and derive from them a procedure to use in applying them to a simple, concrete example. In the process, they increase the transferability of the concepts learned, so that they can apply them in other situations throughout the course. It has been our informal observation that the students understanding and application of the various models of hypothesis testing improved markedly after we introduced this exercise to teach them. In addition, the students discover specic concepts about the nature and practice of science, and about the strengths and weaknesses of the various philosophical schools, through the experience of conducting an investigation. Here are a few of the points that students typically make in post-exercise discussion: Hypotheses arise from the imagination. Often, students nd it difcult to invent hypotheses at the beginning of the exercise. Although the small number of observations allows a great variety of hypotheses, it also does little to suggest them, so imagination is required. Many students come into the course with the idea that hypotheses present themselves fully formed from the data. This exercise requires them to do as working scientists must: invent hypotheses with scant preliminary information. Science doesnt prove hypotheses. Any students who come into this exercise with the naive justicationist view that a hypothesis is proven right by making correct predictions should be disabused of this notion by the end. Groups often become quite condent of the number/face alternation hypothesis after a few cards, for instance, only to have it falsied later. By purposely stacking the deck to suggest multiple patterns toward the start, we allow students to discover that a wrong hypothesis can make many good predictions before it starts to make wrong ones. Hypotheses must be testable. Frequently, after a favored hypothesis ceases to agree with the data, one of the groups will propose that there is no pattern; that the pattern is randomness. They nd, though, that this hypothesis doesnt make very clear predictions. What should the next card be, if the deck is random? Scientic hypotheses, to be testable, must make predictions that could, in principal, turn out to be wrong. Otherwise there is no way to tell if they agree with data. This leads to some discussion of the limitations on types of ideas that can be treated scientically. Even though a hypothesis makes a wrong prediction, it may not be denitively falsied. Many science students have been inculcated with Popperian falsicationism, in part as an antidote to naive justicationism. While its not too hard to get students to understand in a lecture
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alternating red and black is the fairest way to distribute the cards, so it must be whats really there, even if its hard to tell from here. Kuhnians modify their hypotheses repeatedly, often sounding a lot like the conventionalists. Okay, it alternates red and black, except after a queen, which reverses the pattern. After a queen or a three. Eventually, though, if the students have done their reading, theyll undergo a paradigm shift, in Kuhns terms, and pick an entirely new hypothesis that is preferred according to Kuhns criteria. The Lakatosians nd themselves saddled with the most work, due to the prescriptive nature of this model. They have to justify each modication, make new predictions based on that modication, and abandon it if the predictions arent upheld. The exercise concludes when one of us tells the students that they have run out of grant money. Are they ready to publish? We start the post-exercise discussion by having the students talk about how sure they are about their remaining hypothesis or hypotheses. While they usually want to know the right answer, we always tell them that Mother Nature isnt in the business of direct revelation. We then move the discussion by having the students describe what they have learned from the exercise.

Outcomes
One important general result from this exercise is increased interaction among the students. We typically use it during the rst week of class, when many of the students dont know each other yet. The cooperative learning involved requires the students to work together in producing and evaluating hypotheses. The playful nature of the exercise produces an informal atmosphere and further encourages discussion among students both within and between groups. One of the well-established benets of cooperative learning is reduction of stress and anxiety (Johnson, Johnson, and Smith 1991). Students in this course are asked to perform some inherently difcult and stressful mental tasks; we encourage them to consider the ideas of others supportively, and to consider their own ideas critically. These are always difcult demands, and more so when the subject matter involves ideas as strongly held as religious beliefs. The value of cooperative learning in promoting an informal, interactive atmosphere is especially great under these circumstances. Structured cooperative learning has also been demonstrated to be an effective tool in fostering critical thinking skills, which is a key goal of this course as well as the University Studies program of which it is a part (Nelson, 1994). This exercise makes use of the beyond the information given model of concept attainment (Bruner, 1973). The students take the abstract models of hypoth-

Stacking the Deck why a hypothesis cant be denitively proven, it is considerably harder to explain why its also hard to falsify a hypothesis denitively. In this exercise, the students who are modeling Lakatoss method have to demonstrate this in a concrete way. They modify auxiliary hypotheses, as described above, and the class as a whole gains an understanding of the difculty of absolutely disproving a hypothesis. Ideas can be evaluated even in the absence of certainty. The preceding realizations might suggest to the student an extreme form of conventionalism: since hypotheses are products of the imagination, and they cant be denitively proven or falsied, then scientists just choose the ones they want. On the contrary, this exercise helps to demonstrate that there are criteria for choice of hypotheses. In class discussion at the end of the exercise, we revisit and emphasize Kuhns ve criteria, and consider the merits of Lakatoss method. This nal point sets the stage for a theme that runs throughout the class: while it is generally impossible to reach absolute certainty about ideas in many elds of thought, some ideas are better than others, and there are rational ways of evaluating them. Following Barbour and Murphy, we suggest that this process of evaluating ideas can be generalized from science to other elds, even theology. The students go on to apply diverse criteria to evaluate their own ideas about religion as well as science. For instance, last semester a student was discussing whether the world was wholly predetermined by God, or whether there is genuine novelty in the world. He came down on the side of genuine novelty, and justied it in a way that made use of Kuhns criteria. Both views probably agree with the available data. On coherence, however, he argued that novelty holds the advantage. First, the idea of genuine novelty is more consistent with a quantum-mechanical view of physics, in which events on the microscopic level are not determined before their occurrence. Second, the view of novelty is more coherent with the theological concept of Gods gift of freedom to humans and the world. He found no decided advantage for either view in scope or simplicity, but concluded that the fertility of the genuine novelty view is a decided advantage theologically. If all is predetermined, then the consequences of knowing this in our own lives might be indifference or despair; if there is genuine openness in the cosmos, this engenders hope for the future. This exercise has been very successful for us in the classroom, judging from informal student reactions, and from the degree to which students seem to absorb the major ideas in it. Few class sessions in this course are as actively involving as this one, in fact. How might this approach be generalized to other topics in the course? The use of group discussion is one aspect that we have
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adopted throughout; in particular, the format of small group discussion followed by sharing with the class as a whole is one that works well for a variety of topics. The active, visually involving nature of this exercise, though, has been more difcult to achieve in other areas of the course. The exercise also leads to some oversimplication of the philosophical ideas involved, which must be countered in the class discussion that follows. Most important, the process of collecting data is not so simple or clear-cut as looking at a card, of course. It may be that a visit to an actual scientic research lab and exposure to some of the problems of experimental variability would be a good follow-up to this class period. Some question may also be raised about the expectations that we raise for the students. This class period is fun, its active, and its involving. Much of what we do, and hope to train our students to do, is fun on a much more intellectual and abstract plane. If we teach students philosophy of science using a deck of cards, do we distract them from the possibility of conducting an incisive discussion without props? We can only say that our experience with our students suggests that it is possible to instill some academic enthusiasm with an exercise like this one, and that the students can continue to express that enthusiasm later in the course with considerable intellectual rigor.

References
Barbour, Ian G. 1997. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. HarperCollins: New York. Bruner, Jerome S. 1973. Beyond the Information Given: Studies in the Psychology of Knowing. New York: W.W. Norton. Duhem, Pierre. 1954. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Translated by P. P. Weiner. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gathman, Allen C. and Pratt, Andrew. 2002. UI415 course page. <http://biology.semo.edu/courses/ui415/>. Johnson, David W., Johnson, Roger T., and Smith, Karl A. 1991. Cooperative Learning; Increasing College Faculty Instructional productivity. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4. Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development. Journet, Alan R.P. 1993/1994. Using a Deck of Playing Cards to Illustrate the Process of Science. Journal of College Science Teaching 23, no. 3:177180. Kourany, Janet. 1987. Scientic Knowledge: Basic Issues in the Philosophy of Science. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Kuhn, Thomas. 1965. The Structure of Scientic Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, Alan. 1970. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murphy, Nancey C. 1990. Theology in the Age of Scientic Reasoning. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

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Popper, Karl R. 1965. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientic Knowledge. New York: Harper and Row. School of University Studies, Southeast Missouri State University. 2002. <http://ustudies.semo.edu/about_us.htm>.

Nelson, Craig E. 1994. Critical Thinking and Collaborative Learning. In Collaborative Learning: Underlying Processes and Effective Techniques, edited by Kris Bosworth and Sharon J. Hamilton. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 59. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

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