Concept of Non-exactness in Science Education

Historically, human beings, living in a complex and unknown world, learnt to survive by using rules, which were essentially simpler than the reality around them. The fact that human beings have survived for many hundreds of years in this complex and changing world, speaks for their ability to simplify rules for functioning in the surrounding reality according to their perception . Different people simplify the surrounding reality in different ways. A subjective component is present in the perception of any scientific fact [1]. Therefore there exists a phenomenon of so-called "subjective science". This phenomenon contradicts the idea of the objective character of scientific knowledge, which is a basic principle of science education in an industrial society. We assume that, in the postindustrial society, the role of the subjective component in the scientific knowledge grows. New methods and contents of science education appear to use non-exact and insufficiently formalized models of reality . We base our study on the fact that during any scientific study, a scientist is affected both by the reality and by the subjective perception of the reality, existing in a complex combination. If different scientists study one event, it is important to understand how much various versions of the event differ from one another . In the following study, we suggest to a group of subjects various datasets, and ask them to derive some logical rule governing the sets. Each subject arrives to his/her own version about rules governing the dataset. Comparative study of the different versions is the object of our research. The study allows understanding of the manner in which people may analyze a system, what the common characteristics are of the obtained versions, and "the degree of difference" from the true rules of the system's functioning.