A ciência em romances de ficção científica: leituras e caminhos para a educação em ciências

Abstract

In this research we have selected a group of science fiction novels and tried to comprehend the way science is pictured in the stories. Pérez and others (2001) synthesize seven misconceptions of science that we used to build categories for a content analysis. The epistemology of Fourez (1995) was also an important perspective to this work. This research represents a possibility to discuss science through literature. The most important results lead us to discuss the connections between science and society: power provided by science and technology and it s ethical issues; conceptions of progress; interaction between science and art, labor, economy, religion; possibilities to establish a bond between natural science and social science like History, Philosophy and Sociology. Although issues about science methods and processes could also be found in the novels, those were not the most important kind. The socio-political aspects of science (PIASSI, 2007) are to be considered the key point of science fiction, and perhaps the most meaningful reason to think about this literary genre with an educational purpose.