A favor e contra o método: a tensão entre racionalismo e anarquismo epistemológico na controvérsia entre Big Bang e Estado Estacionário

Abstract

With the growth of naive and critical views about science and its authority, it is natural to question educational proposals that may further promote relativism. In view of this risk, based on studies on the history of cosmology in the first half of the 20th century, it is argued that it is pertinent to include controversies about the nature of science in science education. For that, are presented and discussed two antagonistic views of philosophers of science about the change in scientific theories: the critical rationalism of Imre Lakatos and the epistemological anarchism of Paul Feyerabend. They were used to create two synthesis of the history of cosmology: first a rational reconstruction of history and then, a history with greater space for the plurality of theories, including the presence of factors currently considered irrational in science. In conclusion, it is argued that this type of controversy has the potential to prevent the growth of naive views about science, both based on excessive trust in the specialists’ authority, as well as a radicalization of the distrust of any authority.