Natural Sciences- Scope

• What is the area of knowledge about?

• What practical problems can be solved through applying this knowledge?

• What makes this area of knowledge important?

• What are the current open questions in this area?

• Are there ethical considerations that limit the scope of inquiry?

What is science?

Science: organised, systematic enterprise that gathers knowledge about the world and condenses the knowledge into testable laws.

- Edward O Wilson

Non-science

The Scientific Method

Traditional Model: Inductivism

1 Observation

2 Hypothesis

3 Experiment

4 Law

5 Theory

Scientific experiments

A good experiment should have the following features:-

• controllability• measurability• repeatability

An example: The Copernican Revolution

An example: The Copernican Revolution

An example: The Copernican Revolution

1 Observation

2 Hypothesis

3 Experiment

4 Law

5 Theory

Problems with observation

• Relevance

• Expectations

• Expert seeing

• The observer effect

Which comes first- observation or theory?

Testing hypotheses

• Confirmation bias

• Background assumptions

• Many different hypotheses are consistent with a given set of data

nb The principle of simplicity

Testing hypotheses

The problem of induction

Hypothetico-deductive method

Karl Popper: Falsification

But I shall certainly admit a system as Empirical or Scientific only if it is capable of being tested by Experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as the criterion of demarcation.

- Karl Popper

Falsification: Problems

• Experimental errors

• Auxiliary hypotheses

Thomas Kuhn: Paradigm Shifts

• Normal science

• Scientific revolutions

• Periods of scientific crisis

Thomas Kuhn: Paradigm Shifts

Paradigm Shifts: Problems

• Normal science

• Scientific revolutions

• Periods of scientific crisis

Science and Truth

In Kuhn’s view, scientists don’t discover the nature of reality; they create it. There is no way the world is, for each paradigm makes its own world. It’s easy to see why such views raise questions about the end of science. If there is not truth with a capital ‘T’, then, of course, it makes no sense to say that scientists have a monopoly of it.

from The End of Science by Theodore Schick Jr

WOKs

Memory Sense Perception Language Reason Emotion Intuition Imagination Faith

Knowledge Questions

Linking Questions