History of Physics and the Trust in Science

Recently, the status of science within society has been contested by antiscientific movements, so that ill-founded debates have become a widespread problem. The trust in science is the trust that the social process of scientific investigation is still the most reliable and authoritative way to produce knowledge of natural phenomena. Therefore, to restore the authority of science, science education needs to focus on the social process of knowledge production. Since the epistemological norms of the scientific communities have been historically established, this assigns the history and philosophy of science an important role in science education. This contribution discusses didactic paths that introduce an historical approach to the physics laboratory, to help students and teachers in focusing on the social construction of scientific investigation. Link to topics of actual relevance from both the scientific and the societal points of view are also pursued.