• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.354-372
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to explore the philosophical position of various scientific theories based on the scientific worldviews for science education. In addition, it aims to expand science education, which has usually dealt with epistemology and methodology, to ontology, that is, to the problem of metaphysics. It can be said that there exists a physical realism, traditionally defined as a strong determinism of the metaphysical belief. That is fixed and unchanging objective scientific knowledge independent of our minds, which was established by Newton, Einstein and Schridinger. What can be seen in the natural laws of dynamics can be called 'mathematicization'. Einstein also shook the traditional views to some extent through the theory of relativity, but his theory was still close to traditional thinking. On the contrary, to escape from this rigid determinism, we need anthropomorphic concepts such as 'possibility' and 'chance'. It is a characteristic of the modern scientific worldviews that leads the change of scientific theory from a classically strong deterministic thought to a weak deterministic accidental accident, probability theory, and a naturalistic point of view. This can be said to correspond to Darwin's theory of evolution and quantum mechanics. We can have three types of epistemological worlds that justify this ontological worldviews. These are rationalism, empiricism and naturalism. In many cases, science education does not tell us what kind of metaphysical beliefs the scientific theories we deal with in the field of education are based on. Also, science education focuses only on the understanding of scientific knowledge. However, it can be said that true knowledge can bring understanding only when it is connected to the knowledge of learned knowledge and the learner's own metaphysical belief in the world. Therefore, in the future, science education needs to connect various scientific theories based on scientific worldviews and philosophical position and present them to students.