^aSchool of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia. E-mail: sploo@shbie.ubd.edu.bn

Abstract

Culture without nature is empty, nature without culture is deaf
Intercultural dialogue in higher education around the globe is needed to improve the theory, policy and practice of science and science education. The culture, cosmology and philosophy of 'global' science as practiced today in all societies around the world are seemingly anchored in the cozy inter-Atlantic Occidental relationship that dominates the world we know today. While it pays cursory acknowledgment to the contributions of earlier civilizations, it somehow fails to give due recognition to the contributions of non-Occidental and non-Platonic thinking that preceded Greco-Roman thought. This essay analyzes language–culture incommensurability as it relates to the concepts of 'nature' and 'observation' from the so-called 'Western' and 'Eastern' perspectives. In so doing, it proposes a thesis that two broad cultures of science exist within an undivided whole.