Chapter Review the Nature of Science Page 36 Pdf

Chapter 1: THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

THE Due southCIENTIFIC WORLD VIEW

SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY

THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE

---

Affiliate 1: THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

Over the course of human history, people have developed many interconnected and validated ideas about the physical, biological, psychological, and social worlds. Those ideas take enabled successive generations to achieve an increasingly comprehensive and reliable understanding of the human species and its environs. The means used to develop these ideas are particular ways of observing, thinking, experimenting, and validating. These ways stand for a central aspect of the nature of science and reflect how scientific discipline tends to differ from other modes of knowing.

It is the union of science, mathematics, and technology that forms the scientific try and that makes information technology and then successful. Although each of these human enterprises has a character and history of its ain, each is dependent on and reinforces the others. Accordingly, the beginning iii chapters of recommendations depict portraits of scientific discipline, mathematics, and technology that emphasize their roles in the scientific endeavor and reveal some of the similarities and connections amid them.

This chapter lays out recommendations for what knowledge of the way science works is requisite for scientific literacy. The chapter focuses on three principal subjects: the scientific world view, scientific methods of enquiry, and the nature of the scientific enterprise. Chapters two and 3 consider ways in which mathematics and engineering science differ from science in full general. Capacity four through 9 present views of the world as depicted past current science; Chapter 10, Historical Perspectives, covers key episodes in the evolution of science; and Chapter 11, Mutual Themes, pulls together ideas that cut beyond all these views of the world.

�

THE SouthCIENTIFIC WORLD VIEW

Scientists share certain bones beliefs and attitudes about what they practise and how they view their work. These accept to exercise with the nature of the world and what can be learned about it.

The Globe Is Understandable

Science presumes that the things and events in the universe occur in consistent patterns that are comprehensible through careful, systematic written report. Scientists believe that through the use of the intellect, and with the aid of instruments that extend the senses, people can observe patterns in all of nature.

Science as well assumes that the universe is, every bit its name implies, a vast unmarried system in which the bones rules are everywhere the same. Knowledge gained from studying one part of the universe is applicable to other parts. For instance, the same principles of motion and gravitation that explain the motility of falling objects on the surface of the globe also explain the motion of the moon and the planets. With some modifications over the years, the same principles of motion take applied to other forces—and to the move of everything, from the smallest nuclear particles to the virtually massive stars, from sailboats to space vehicles, from bullets to light rays.

Scientific Ideas Are Subject To Modify

Science is a process for producing noesis. The process depends both on making careful observations of phenomena and on inventing theories for making sense out of those observations. Alter in knowledge is inevitable considering new observations may claiming prevailing theories. No matter how well i theory explains a gear up of observations, it is possible that some other theory may fit just as well or better, or may fit a still wider range of observations. In science, the testing and improving and occasional discarding of theories, whether new or quondam, continue all the fourth dimension. Scientists assume that even if at that place is no way to secure complete and absolute truth, increasingly accurate approximations can exist made to account for the world and how it works.

Scientific Knowledge Is Durable

Although scientists reject the notion of attaining absolute truth and take some uncertainty as part of nature, most scientific noesis is durable. The modification of ideas, rather than their outright rejection, is the norm in science, as powerful constructs tend to survive and grow more precise and to become widely accustomed. For case, in formulating the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein did not discard the Newtonian laws of motion but rather showed them to be only an approximation of limited application inside a more than general concept. (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses Newtonian mechanics, for instance, in calculating satellite trajectories.) Moreover, the growing power of scientists to make accurate predictions near natural phenomena provides disarming evidence that nosotros really are gaining in our understanding of how the world works. Continuity and stability are as characteristic of science as change is, and conviction is as prevalent equally tentativeness.

Science Cannot Provide Consummate Answers to All Questions

There are many matters that cannot usefully be examined in a scientific way. There are, for instance, behavior that—past their very nature—cannot be proved or disproved (such as the existence of supernatural powers and beings, or the true purposes of life). In other cases, a scientific approach that may be valid is probable to exist rejected every bit irrelevant by people who hold to certain behavior (such as in miracles, fortune-telling, astrology, and superstition). Nor do scientists take the ways to settle issues apropos good and evil, although they can sometimes contribute to the discussion of such issues by identifying the probable consequences of particular actions, which may be helpful in weighing alternatives.

�

SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY

Fundamentally, the various scientific disciplines are alike in their reliance on bear witness, the employ of hypothesis and theories, the kinds of logic used, and much more. Nevertheless, scientists differ profoundly from 1 another in what phenomena they investigate and in how they go about their work; in the reliance they place on historical data or on experimental findings and on qualitative or quantitative methods; in their recourse to fundamental principles; and in how much they draw on the findings of other sciences. However, the exchange of techniques, data, and concepts goes on all the time among scientists, and in that location are mutual understandings amid them nigh what constitutes an investigation that is scientifically valid.

Scientific inquiry is not easily described apart from the context of particular investigations. In that location simply is no fixed ready of steps that scientists ever follow, no one path that leads them unerringly to scientific knowledge. There are, however, certain features of science that give it a distinctive graphic symbol every bit a way of enquiry. Although those features are especially characteristic of the piece of work of professional scientists, anybody can exercise them in thinking scientifically about many matters of interest in everyday life.

Science Demands Bear witness

Sooner or later, the validity of scientific claims is settled by referring to observations of phenomena. Hence, scientists concentrate on getting accurate data. Such evidence is obtained past observations and measurements taken in situations that range from natural settings (such as a forest) to completely contrived ones (such equally the laboratory). To make their observations, scientists employ their own senses, instruments (such as microscopes) that heighten those senses, and instruments that tap characteristics quite unlike from what humans tin can sense (such equally magnetic fields). Scientists observe passively (earthquakes, bird migrations), brand collections (rocks, shells), and actively probe the world (every bit by boring into the earth's crust or administering experimental medicines).

In some circumstances, scientists can command weather condition deliberately and precisely to obtain their evidence. They may, for example, control the temperature, change the concentration of chemicals, or choose which organisms mate with which others. Past varying just ane condition at a time, they can hope to identify its exclusive effects on what happens, uncomplicated past changes in other conditions. Oftentimes, however, control of weather may be impractical (as in studying stars), or unethical (as in studying people), or probable to distort the natural phenomena (as in studying wild fauna in captivity). In such cases, observations have to be made over a sufficiently wide range of naturally occurring conditions to infer what the influence of various factors might be. Because of this reliance on evidence, groovy value is placed on the development of meliorate instruments and techniques of observation, and the findings of any one investigator or group are unremarkably checked by others.

Science Is a Blend of Logic and Imagination

Although all sorts of imagination and thought may be used in coming up with hypotheses and theories, sooner or later scientific arguments must conform to the principles of logical reasoning—that is, to testing the validity of arguments by applying certain criteria of inference, demonstration, and common sense. Scientists may often disagree about the value of a particular slice of evidence, or nearly the appropriateness of particular assumptions that are fabricated—and therefore disagree most what conclusions are justified. But they tend to agree about the principles of logical reasoning that connect evidence and assumptions with conclusions.

Scientists do non work just with data and well-developed theories. Often, they have only tentative hypotheses about the way things may exist. Such hypotheses are widely used in science for choosing what data to pay attention to and what additional data to seek, and for guiding the interpretation of data. In fact, the process of formulating and testing hypotheses is one of the core activities of scientists. To be useful, a hypothesis should propose what bear witness would support it and what evidence would refute it. A hypothesis that cannot in principle be put to the exam of bear witness may exist interesting, only information technology is non likely to be scientifically useful.

The use of logic and the close examination of testify are necessary only not ordinarily sufficient for the advancement of science. Scientific concepts do not emerge automatically from data or from any corporeality of assay alone. Inventing hypotheses or theories to imagine how the earth works and then figuring out how they can be put to the examination of reality is equally artistic equally writing verse, composing music, or designing skyscrapers. Sometimes discoveries in science are made unexpectedly, even by accident. But knowledge and creative insight are usually required to recognize the meaning of the unexpected. Aspects of data that have been ignored by one scientist may pb to new discoveries past another.

Science Explains and Predicts

Scientists strive to brand sense of observations of phenomena by constructing explanations for them that utilise, or are consistent with, currently accepted scientific principles. Such explanations—theories—may be either sweeping or restricted, only they must exist logically sound and incorporate a significant body of scientifically valid observations. The credibility of scientific theories ofttimes comes from their ability to show relationships among phenomena that previously seemed unrelated. The theory of moving continents, for instance, has grown in credibility as it has shown relationships amidst such various phenomena as earthquakes, volcanoes, the friction match between types of fossils on unlike continents, the shapes of continents, and the contours of the ocean floors.

The essence of science is validation by observation. But it is not enough for scientific theories to fit only the observations that are already known. Theories should also fit additional observations that were non used in formulating the theories in the first place; that is, theories should accept predictive ability. Demonstrating the predictive ability of a theory does not necessarily require the prediction of events in the future. The predictions may be about evidence from the by that has non yet been found or studied. A theory about the origins of human beings, for example, can be tested by new discoveries of human-like fossil remains. This approach is conspicuously necessary for reconstructing the events in the history of the world or of the life forms on it. It is likewise necessary for the study of processes that usually occur very slowly, such as the building of mountains or the aging of stars. Stars, for example, evolve more slowly than we can usually discover. Theories of the evolution of stars, however, may predict unsuspected relationships between features of starlight that tin then exist sought in existing collections of information about stars.

Scientists Try to Identify and Avert Bias

When faced with a claim that something is true, scientists respond by asking what evidence supports it. Merely scientific bear witness can be biased in how the data are interpreted, in the recording or reporting of the data, or even in the option of what data to consider in the first place. Scientists' nationality, sexual practice, ethnic origin, historic period, political convictions, and and so on may incline them to look for or emphasize one or another kind of evidence or estimation. For example, for many years the written report of primates—by male scientists—focused on the competitive social behavior of males. Non until female scientists entered the field was the importance of female primates' community-building behavior recognized.

Bias attributable to the investigator, the sample, the method, or the instrument may not exist completely avoidable in every instance, but scientists want to know the possible sources of bias and how bias is likely to influence evidence. Scientists want, and are expected, to exist as warning to possible bias in their own work as in that of other scientists, although such objectivity is not always achieved. One safeguard against undetected bias in an surface area of study is to have many different investigators or groups of investigators working in it.

Science Is Not Authoritarian

It is appropriate in science, as elsewhere, to plow to knowledgeable sources of information and opinion, usually people who specialize in relevant disciplines. But esteemed government have been wrong many times in the history of science. In the long run, no scientist, yet famous or highly placed, is empowered to determine for other scientists what is true, for none are believed by other scientists to take special access to the truth. There are no preestablished conclusions that scientists must reach on the basis of their investigations.

In the curt run, new ideas that do not mesh well with mainstream ideas may encounter vigorous criticism, and scientists investigating such ideas may have difficulty obtaining support for their research. Indeed, challenges to new ideas are the legitimate business organisation of science in building valid knowledge. Even the most prestigious scientists have occasionally refused to accept new theories despite there existence enough accumulated evidence to convince others. In the long run, however, theories are judged by their results: When someone comes up with a new or improved version that explains more phenomena or answers more of import questions than the previous version, the new i eventually takes its identify.

�

THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE

Science as an enterprise has individual, social, and institutional dimensions. Scientific action is one of the primary features of the contemporary world and, possibly more than any other, distinguishes our times from earlier centuries.

Science Is a Complex Social Activity

Scientific piece of work involves many individuals doing many different kinds of work and goes on to some caste in all nations of the world. Men and women of all ethnic and national backgrounds participate in scientific discipline and its applications. These people—scientists and engineers, mathematicians, physicians, technicians, computer programmers, librarians, and others—may focus on scientific knowledge either for its own sake or for a particular practical purpose, and they may exist concerned with data gathering, theory building, instrument edifice, or communicating.

Every bit a social activeness, science inevitably reflects social values and viewpoints. The history of economic theory, for example, has paralleled the evolution of ideas of social justice—at ane time, economists considered the optimum wage for workers to be no more than than what would only barely permit the workers to survive. Earlier the twentieth century, and well into it, women and people of color were essentially excluded from most of science past restrictions on their didactics and employment opportunities; the remarkable few who overcame those obstacles were even then likely to take their piece of work belittled by the science establishment.

The direction of scientific research is affected by informal influences within the culture of science itself, such as prevailing opinion on what questions are most interesting or what methods of investigation are most likely to be fruitful. Elaborate processes involving scientists themselves have been developed to decide which inquiry proposals receive funding, and committees of scientists regularly review progress in various disciplines to recommend general priorities for funding.

Scientific discipline goes on in many different settings. Scientists are employed by universities, hospitals, business and manufacture, government, independent enquiry organizations, and scientific associations. They may piece of work alone, in modest groups, or as members of big enquiry teams. Their places of work include classrooms, offices, laboratories, and natural field settings from space to the bottom of the ocean.

Because of the social nature of science, the broadcasting of scientific data is crucial to its progress. Some scientists present their findings and theories in papers that are delivered at meetings or published in scientific journals. Those papers enable scientists to inform others virtually their work, to expose their ideas to criticism past other scientists, and, of course, to stay abreast of scientific developments around the world. The advocacy of informatics (knowledge of the nature of information and its manipulation) and the development of information technologies (especially computer systems) affect all sciences. Those technologies speed up data drove, compilation, and analysis; make new kinds of analysis applied; and shorten the time between discovery and application.

Science Is Organized Into Content Disciplines and Is Conducted in Various Institutions

Organizationally, scientific discipline tin can be thought of as the collection of all of the different scientific fields, or content disciplines. From anthropology through zoology, at that place are dozens of such disciplines. They differ from one some other in many ways, including history, phenomena studied, techniques and linguistic communication used, and kinds of outcomes desired. With respect to purpose and philosophy, however, all are as scientific and together make upward the same scientific attempt. The advantage of having disciplines is that they provide a conceptual structure for organizing research and research findings. The disadvantage is that their divisions do non necessarily match the way the world works, and they can brand communication difficult. In any instance, scientific disciplines do not have fixed borders. Physics shades into chemical science, astronomy, and geology, as does chemical science into biology and psychology, and so on. New scientific disciplines (astrophysics and sociobiology, for case) are continually beingness formed at the boundaries of others. Some disciplines grow and break into subdisciplines, which then become disciplines in their own right.

Universities, industry, and regime are also part of the structure of the scientific effort. University research usually emphasizes knowledge for its own sake, although much of it is as well directed toward applied issues. Universities, of class, are as well particularly committed to educating successive generations of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. Industries and businesses ordinarily emphasize enquiry directed to practical ends, only many too sponsor enquiry that has no immediately obvious applications, partly on the premise that information technology will exist applied fruitfully in the long run. The federal government funds much of the research in universities and in industry but also supports and conducts enquiry in its many national laboratories and research centers. Individual foundations, public-interest groups, and state governments as well support research.

Funding agencies influence the direction of scientific discipline past virtue of the decisions they make on which inquiry to support. Other deliberate controls on science result from federal (and sometimes local) regime regulations on research practices that are accounted to be dangerous and on the treatment of the homo and animate being subjects used in experiments.

There Are Generally Accepted Upstanding Principles in the Conduct of Scientific discipline

Most scientists carry themselves according to the ethical norms of science. The strongly held traditions of accurate recordkeeping, openness, and replication, buttressed by the disquisitional review of one'south work past peers, serve to go along the vast majority of scientists well within the bounds of ethical professional behavior. Sometimes, however, the pressure to get credit for beingness the showtime to publish an idea or observation leads some scientists to withhold information or even to falsify their findings. Such a violation of the very nature of science impedes scientific discipline. When discovered, it is strongly condemned by the scientific community and the agencies that fund research.

Some other domain of scientific ethics relates to possible impairment that could effect from scientific experiments. One aspect is the treatment of live experimental subjects. Modern scientific ethics require that due regard must exist given to the wellness, comfort, and well-being of animal subjects. Moreover, research involving homo subjects may be conducted only with the informed consent of the subjects, even if this constraint limits some kinds of potentially important research or influences the results. Informed consent entails full disclosure of the risks and intended benefits of the research and the right to reject to participate. In improver, scientists must non knowingly bailiwick coworkers, students, the neighborhood, or the community to health or belongings risks without their knowledge and consent.

The ethics of science also relates to the possible harmful effects of applying the results of enquiry. The long-term effects of scientific discipline may be unpredictable, only some idea of what applications are expected from scientific work tin be ascertained by knowing who is interested in funding it. If, for example, the Department of Defense force offers contracts for working on a line of theoretical mathematics, mathematicians may infer that it has application to new military technology and therefore would probable be bailiwick to secrecy measures. Military or industrial secrecy is acceptable to some scientists but not to others. Whether a scientist chooses to work on enquiry of smashing potential risk to humanity, such every bit nuclear weapons or germ warfare, is considered by many scientists to be a matter of personal ethics, not one of professional person ideals.

Scientists Participate in Public Affairs Both equally Specialists and as Citizens

Scientists tin can bring data, insights, and belittling skills to affect matters of public business organisation. Often they tin assistance the public and its representatives to understand the likely causes of events (such every bit natural and technological disasters) and to guess the possible furnishings of projected policies (such as ecological effects of various farming methods). Oft they can evidence to what is not possible. In playing this advisory role, scientists are expected to be especially careful in trying to distinguish fact from interpretation, and research findings from speculation and opinion; that is, they are expected to fill employ of the principles of scientific enquiry.

Even so, scientists tin can seldom bring definitive answers to matters of public debate. Some issues are as well complex to fit within the current scope of science, or there may exist little reliable information available, or the values involved may lie outside of science. Moreover, although at that place may be at any one time a wide consensus on the bulk of scientific knowledge, the agreement does not extend to all scientific problems, permit lonely to all scientific discipline-related social issues. And of course, on bug exterior of their expertise, the opinions of scientists should enjoy no special credibility.

In their work, scientists go to slap-up lengths to avoid bias—their own as well as that of others. But in matters of public involvement, scientists, like other people, can exist expected to be biased where their own personal, corporate, institutional, or community interests are at stake. For example, because of their commitment to science, many scientists may understandably be less than objective in their beliefs on how science is to be funded in comparing to other social needs.

�

---

Copyright © 1989, 1990 by American Association for the Advancement of Science

riggiocrianizied.blogspot.com

Source: http://www.project2061.org/publications/sfaa/online/chap1.htm

Share this post