The madness of love as fugitive pedagogy for science education

Science education must move beyond techno-capitalist apathy by centring ‘love for the world’ as a fundamental principle of science praxis. Drawing on Simone Weil’s philosophy, specifically her concept of justice as the madness of love, this article argues that such love is not antithetical to rigorous scientific inquiry but essential to it. Through three cases in which love for the world has motivated science praxis, I illustrate how such practices – suspending the self for collective and intergenerational necessity, embodying scientific knowledge as an act of solidarity, and decentring disciplines to honour plural ways of relating to the world – have always existed at the margins of hegemonic science. These cases are offered as pedagogical instances of fugitive science praxis that science educators can mobilise to contest structural apathy, harmful disciplinary complicities, and the myth of science as an emotionally neutral and disembodied enterprise, reorienting instead our habits towards attentive love.