Learning science: what on earth does it have to do with social justice?

One of the conceits of 20th/21st century views of the Enlightenment is that science has been liberated from the values associated with the humanities, often enshrouded within the naturalistic fallacy, that science can tell us how the world is, not how it ought to be. Attempts to incorporate socio-scientific issues into the curriculum have been beset by theoretical, let alone pedagogic problems, because they broadly operate within a paradigm of an apolitical and value-free science. I argue that the practice of science is predicated on notions of human emancipation, social justice and open (as opposed to closed) systems, and that social justice lies at the core of understanding science. Drawing on the ‘metaphilosophy’ of Critical Realism, and using concepts commonly found in the science curriculum I aim to demonstrate that an interdisciplinary approach to explaining ‘events’ liberates science from its epistemological cage and deepens, rather than trivialises, understanding of core scientific concepts.