SCIENCE AND RELIGION: SILENT CONFLICT, SILENT DEBATE

SCIENCE AND RELIGION: SILENT CONFLICT, SILENCED DEBATE

Abstract

Although teachers and students do not admit it, there is a silent conflict and a silenced debate when the meeting between the religious convictions and worldviews, and scientific conceptions. Some Science teachers taste this conflict when, committing to the profession, in the act of teaching itself, at the same time, need to keep coherent to their religious beliefs. This article is the result of an investigation in which was aimed to identify the conceptions of Science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) professors, about the possibilities and limitations of the dialogue between science and religion in a Science class context. To that, a qualitative research was made, and, parting from a semi-structured interview and the contempt selection, a discussion about the speeches of the interviewed. As a result, we could observe different attitudes from the professors in relation to the theme. These attitudes varied between opposite positions to the possibility of dialogue between the two visions, and those more balanced where the possibility of dialogue is admitted, or even its necessity for the promotion of respect among the different cultural constructions. Though, in its majority, professors show some faith, the debate about the relations between these conceptions is still silent, and we understand that the breaking of this silence is important to promote discussion of how the many religious concepts can influence in the professors and students’ worldviews, knowing that the scientific knowledge needs to consider other cultural expressions.