This study examines the question of whether physical science as an academic subject is designed to serve as a "science of government' or as a "science for life'. In other words, is the outcome of the subject merely to promote knowledge about science or about the potential of the knowledge embedded in science to create young scientists? This study elucidates how the "governmentality' of the apartheid and post-apartheid governments established the knowledge discourses that constrain the intellectual development of physical science learners in South Africa. The findings suggest that the aim of physical science was neither to liberate nor to empower the learner but to act as a form of policing and exercising social control.