Assumptions Matter! Epistemological, Ideological, and Axiological Aspects of Assumptions that Undergird Collective Reasoning About Science, Technology, and Society

Abstract

Our experiences as participants in everyday conversations suggest that the assumptions we are making, individually and collectively, are consequential to how the conversation unfolds. Social cues, false starts, repairs in speech, and other interactional aspects of communication (such as facial expressions, gestures, posture, and tone) help orient people to assumptions and expectations underlying the conversation they are engaged in. Within science and engineering education research, there is growing recognition that modeling the assumptions at play in learners’ talk and action can enrich our interpretations of what is being learnt and how. In this chapter, we analyze the assumptions undergirding a short segment of talk from a classroom discussion on the ethics of robot drones weaponized and used by the US military to kill people in countries such as Yemen and Afghanistan. The discussion was part of an undergraduate course on engineering ethics, and 16 undergraduate engineering students and 1 undergraduate teaching assistant participated in it. Our analysis outlines the science/engineering disciplinary practices that structure the argument and the qualities of the underlying assumptions pertaining to the distribution of power and resources (ideological), values (axiological), and nature of knowledge (epistemological). We argue that understanding the interweaving of these qualities of talk are important for facilitating discussions on the ethics and politics of science and technology.