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Key Concept: Science is not a body of knowledge. It is instead the term for empircal approaches for assessing how the physical world (i.e., Nature)
operates.
Science is a type of inquiry into nature characterized by the availability of empirically testable hypotheses.
We will examine what we mean by "empirical" and "testable hypotheses" over the next few weeks. "Inquiry" is straight-forward enough: Science is about asking (and hopefully answering!) questions. And as for a defintion of "Nature", here's Charles Darwin's definition (from the Introduction to The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication): "...I mean by nature only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and laws only the ascertained sequence of events."
Given that, science might be considered the process of the description of nature and the discovery of natural laws.
Some attributes of Science:
- Is best described and distinguished from other fields of human endeavor by its methodology: physical evidence and reasoned logic (PEARL) (which we will explore over the next few weeks)
- Is organized by its content disciplines (subject matter), rather than by other potential organizing principles
- That is, despite occasional comments to the contrary, it is more appropriate to talk about herpetology (the study of amphibians and non-avian reptiles) or sedimentology (the study of sedimentary rocks) or high-energy particle physics than to talk about "Western science" or "German science vs. American science" or "print science vs. platform-presented science."
- In other disciplines, though, content (subject matter) is generally NOT the primary organizing principle. Think of the arts, where it might be more appropriate to talk about the medium (paint vs. sculpture), or the provenance (Chinese art vs. British art)
- Is ultimately based on empiricism:
- Empiricism: evidence-based, backed up by independent observations (in the case of science, observations of nature; in other disciplines, may be based on readings of the historical record, of previously existing laws, etc.)
- Consequently, Science can only deal with issues that have some direct manifestation in the natural world
- Examples:
- Cannot directly address issues of matters outside the natural world (i.e., whether or not a god or
gods exist; whether a particular political or philosophical position or artistic movement is "better" in a non-tangible way;
etc.)
- This is formally called methodological naturalism: the assumption for purpose of inquiry that NO supernatural or metaphysical forces are at work.
- In other words, all events in Science are explicable by natural phenomena
- Methodological naturalism prevents intellectual laziness, because we never reach a point where we say "and then a miracle occurs". Instead, continue to investigate!
- Metholological naturalism has an overwhelmingly good track record!!
- Is NOT the same thing as "ontological naturalism" (the statement that supernatural/metaphysical entities do not exist). Potentially, one can believe in supernatural or metaphysical entities, but as long as you don't invoke them as explanations you are doing Science. However, once you DO invoke them as explanations, you have abandoned Science because you have introduced elements which are immune to independant investigation.
- Note, however: Science DOES directly address any and all matters that have manifestations in the natural world, regardless of the (personal, philosophical, religious, or other) position held by people
- Therefore, Science CAN (and DOES!) reject truth claims such as "the world is only 6000 years old" or "anatomical and genetic complexity cannot be explained without resorting to intelligent design" or "burning fossil fuels has no effect on global climates" or "solar power can provide the same amount of energy that fossil fuels do today", even if people have strongly felt personal reasons for accepting these ideas
- In other words, "Sorry kid, facts beat feelings."
- Cannot directly address issues of matters outside the natural world (i.e., whether or not a god or
gods exist; whether a particular political or philosophical position or artistic movement is "better" in a non-tangible way;
etc.)
- That is, a viewpoint is only considered valid when measured against the natural world, and not by any other metric (seniority of proposer; how well it matches a personal, political, religious, or other belief, etc.)
- Therefore, "compromise" positions between different viewpoints are no more likely to be valid than "extreme" positions. Support for a position is ascertained against the natural world.
- That is in fact what scientists DO for a living: make new discoveries!!
- Consequently, scientific discoveries are provisional and subject to future refinement (or sometimes even rejection)
- The scientific enterprise thus entails not only successful discoveries, but many failures along that way that scientists should take with quiet dignity and grace
- Ironically, many people charge Science and/or scientists with acting "like they know all the answers", when the entire discpline is based on the fact that we don't!
- Alternatively, and also ironically, many people are upset when Science doesn't have "all the answers"
As we will see later on, the most fundamental question you can ask about a scientific idea is
If you were wrong, how would you know it?
We will see over the next few weeks how we form our ideas about the natural world in such a way that we can indeed assess when those ideas are incorrect.
Often, people ask "what do scientists believe." This is the wrong question! Science is not about belief; it is about discoveries and about the methods by which those discoveries were made and tested.
Through Science, we have discovered many aspects of nature. Here are some of the largest level aspects (finer details would be those covered by different content disciplines):
- Nature is understandable; we can achieve an effective understanding of nature through the application of reason and critical thinking
- Natural phenomena tend to follow regular patterns expressible in mathematics (i.e., "laws" in the sense of many physics problems), although these patterns often become increasingly difficult to phrase mathematically for more complex phenomena
- Nature is mechanistic (i.e., it follows regular laws and patterns), but not deterministic (because many phenomena are stochastic and probabilistic, and therefore cannot be predicted in advance)
- In Nature, not all things are possible
- Also, not all possible things happen (e.g., a coin could land "heads" or "tails", but will only do one of those two possible results when actually flipped)
- Consequently, many things in nature only make sense when you understand both the processes that generate the patterns, AND the patterns themselves
For the next several weeks we will examine how scientific methodology works, and then we'll start applying that method to understanding how we can answer questions about global climates, energy, human technology, environments, and their manifold interactions.
Some Relevent Videos
Below are a series of videos that help explain the scientific view of understanding reality and assessing problems, contrasted with supernatural and other non-scientific modes:
First, a series of VERY short videos by TechNYou, called "This Thing Called Science":
"Part 1: Call me skeptical" (2:02):
"Part 2: Testing, testing 1-2-3" (2:30):
"Part 3: Blinded by Science" (2:45):
"Part 4: Confidently Uncertain" (3:01):
"Part 5: Do the right thing" (2:38):
"Part 6: Citizen Science" (3:34):
The next set are by YouTuber Qualia Soup:
"Skewed Views of Science" (10:00, by QualiaSoup):
"Open-mindedness" (9:40, by QualiaSoup):
"The Problem with Anectdotes" (9:01, by QualiaSoup):
"Flawed Thinking By Numbers" (8:12, by QualiaSoup):
"Critical Thinking" (5:13, by QualiaSoup)
"It *Could* Just Be Coincidence" (9:05, by QualiaSoup)
