Table Of ContentPraise for Age of Inference: Cultivating a Scientific Mindset
This volume takes on one of the thorniest existential problems of our time, the
contradiction between the exponentially growing amount of information that indi-
viduals have access to, and the diminished capacity of those individuals to under-
stand it. Its chapters provide the reader with an introduction to the relationship
between knowledge, science, and inference; needed new approaches to learning
science in our new data rich world; and a discussion of what we can and must do to
reduce or eliminate the growing gap between the inference have’s and have nots.
It is not too much to say that how we resolve the issues outlined in this volume will
determine the future of our species on this planet.
—Joseph L. Graves Jr.
Professor of Biological Sciences
North Carolina A&T State University
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science: Biological Sciences
Author of The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium
In Age of Inference: Cultivating a Scientific Mindset, the reader is immediately drawn
into the need to prepare students and educators for utilizing massive and grow-
ing amounts of data to solve human problems. The editors explore the human
interface with robotic technologies embedded in our daily routines and ask us to
consider where humankind will end up in the future, if we, as educators, are not
prepared to cultivate the skills of scientific and logical reasoning in conjunction
with society’s increasing reliance on artificial intelligence. The text is packed with
reasoning-based applications and strategies for use with preservice teachers, in
STEM teacher development, and would also offer a timely book study with super-
intendents and campus-based leaders for addressing the complexities of human
change that we face today.
—Karen Embry Jenlink
Emeritus Professor of Doctoral Studies
Stephen F. Austin State University
President, Association of Teacher Educators (2017–2018)
World Federation Association of Teacher Educators,
Board of Directors (2020–2023)
Age of Inference is useful for science teachers and pre-service teachers who want to
examine issues with scientific literacy in the public and develop strategies for utiliz-
ing the vast quantities of data available to all citizens. Through the stories, experi-
ences, and research-based methods shared by the authors, the reader recognizes
the cruciality of cultivating a scientific mindset where not only knowing, but doing
quality science in the classroom can produce citizens capable of scrutinizing and
employing scientific information for personal and societal decision-making.
—Jean Becherer
Veteran Biology, Ecology, and Forensic Science Teacher
Belleville East High School
How do we know what we know and how can we use that knowledge to make
well-informed decisions? How do we prepare students to tackle illustructured
societal issues that simultaneously present too much information, yet almost always
leave us with unanswered questions? Age of Inference interrogates these questions
through historical, philosophical, and pedagogical lenses. Making meaning is
infused throughout. Through reflective questions, readers delve more deeply into
the material, consider its implications, and think about their own learning.
—Bora Simmons
Professor Emerita, Environmental Education
& Teacher Education Northern Illinois
University Director, National Project for Excellence
in Environmental Education
In our world and society of exponentially growing problems, we need a scientific
mindset more than ever before. Big data is not enough for addressing dangers
to the environment or tackling threats to democracy; we need the ability to draw
sound inferences from the data. Knowledge alone is not enough; we also need
critical reasoning. Cultivating a scientific mindset requires fundamental changes
to the way we teach and learn. This important and well-written volume shows how.
—Ashok Goel
Professor of Computer Science & Human-Centered Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology Editor of AI Magazine Founding Editor
of AAAI’s Interactive AI Magazine
If you are a science teacher concerned about the implications of information
overload, analysis paralysis, and intellectual complacency on our health, economic
future, and democracy, then I recommend this book. In a time of abundant
information, fake news, and conspiracy theories, science as a way of thinking and
knowing is critical for the new Inference Age. This book’s exploration of how we
know including standards of evidence, practical application in the classroom, and
speculation about the future is an important read for science educators.
—Michael Svec
Professor for Physics and Astronomy Education Furman University
Fulbright Scholar to Czech Republic
If you care deeply about science education and the public understanding of sci-
ence, this book is for you! Important and timely, the editors have assembled an
engaging set of essays that illuminate the role and significance of inference in
science. Each chapter moves the reader forward to a deeper understanding of
inference in accessing, conceptualizing, and applying scientific knowledge. As a
collection, the book provides a compelling case for the Age of Inference as the
next evolutionary step in public access to knowledge and challenges the reader to
be a participant in promoting scientific knowledge ethically and responsibly in a
climate of information overload.
—Randy L. Bell
Professor of Science Education & Associate Dean of Academic Affairs
Oregon State University
As opposed to those only purporting to focus on scientific thinking, this book truly
does just that. The authors in three sections take up the notion of what it means to
think in science versus thinking like a scientist and highlight the value in becom-
ing a practitioner of science regardless of one’s ultimate profession. During pres-
ent times, novices are making decisions in the vein of experts but are often not
trained to do so. As the next generation of educators and science communicators
contemplate their futures, Age of Inference: Cultivating a Scientific Mindset, provides
a compelling case for the reconceptualization of individualized education through
broad commentary and specific cases. With this, major challenges not only for
students but also the public at large are discussed. Those trained in the sciences
will recognize essential aspects of their training; aspects that are rarely featured
in standard content-focused textbooks. Further, major issues such as confronting
uncertainty and increasing diversity are broached. With helpful discussion ques-
tions at the end of each chapter, this book can be used in a diversity of settings. In
summary, Age of Inference: Cultivating a Scientific Mindset, moves beyond a consider-
ation of developmental age, and treats the current period of human innovation
as an age where information overload poses a fundamental problem that will take
members of the education community and public to enact a sea change of how
humans reason with information.
—Rebecca Jordan
Professor, Community Sustainability
Michigan State University
Published in 1667, the Saggi di naturali esperienze (Essays on Natural Experiments),
was the one and only publication from one of the world’s earliest scientific acad-
emies, Florence’s Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiment). This book
reflected the Accademia’s crucial work in promoting rigorous experimentation
and argumentation as the foundation of modern Galilean science. Today, given
the rapid changes we see during the transition from the Information Age to the
Inference Age, there is a need to reinvigorate our conversations around the place
and practices of science and science education in contemporary societies. And
in these turbulent times, the need for these conversations will only increase. This
book is an important and timely addition to this work. My congratulations and
thanks to the authors for their work and vision.
—Wayne Melville
Dean of the College of Education
Lakehead University–Ontario
Co-editor of the Journal of Science Teacher Education
Inference is perhaps one of the most important concepts essential to teaching and
learning in the discipline of science. Age of Inference: Cultivating a Scientific Mindset,
edited by Philip Short, Harvey Henson, and John McConnell, brings together a col-
lection of scholarly works on the importance of inference in science. Understanding
how scientists make inferences, and in turn bringing inference to the foreground
in science classrooms is extremely important to how students learn science. The
contributing authors for this book are exceptional experts in their field and offer
the reader a critically important insight into the essential nature and importance of
inference. A higher-order skill, inference is a prerequisite for preparing students of
science and the 21st century skills necessary to scientific understanding, research,
and discovery. The contributing authors for the book have presented an important
collective insight concerning inference and the use of evidence to answer important
questions in the quest for scientific knowledge.
—Patrick M. Jenlink
Regents Professor
Stephen F. Austin State University
Age of Inference offers multiple disciplinary perspectives that are showcased in a
space for reader exploration. Connections engage the reader with content, con-
cepts, and educationally “what could be on the horizon.” It sparked new questions
and prompted me to contemplate possibilities for moving forward with integrated
and interdisciplinary functionality.
—Andrea Burrows
Professor Secondary Science Teacher Education
Associate Dean for the College of Education University of Wyoming
Age of Inference
Age of Inference
Cultivating a Scientific Mindset
edited by
Philip C. Short
Austin Peay State University
Harvey Henson
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
John R. McConnell
Austin Peay State University
INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC.
Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov
ISBN: 978-1-64802-797-0 (Paperback)
978-1-64802-798-7 (Hardcover)
978-1-64802-799-4 (E-Book)
Copyright © 2022 Information Age Publishing Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission
from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Foreword ...............................................................................................ix
Miranda Feliciano Tyson
Acknowledgments and Dedication .....................................................xi
SECTION I
INTRODUCTION: THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE,
SCIENCE, AND INFERENCE
1 The Age of Inference ............................................................................3
John R. McConnell, Sarah B. Dugger, and Philip C. Short
2 Nature of the Scientific Enterprise ....................................................17
Harvey Henson
3 The Nature of Science Education: Relativity of Theory ...................39
Philip C. Short
4 Mathematics: Language, Modeling, and Comparison
Assisting Inference ..............................................................................59
Mary Barone Martin, Tammy Jones, Dovie Kimmins,
and Teresa Schmidt
v
