SCIENCE AS A PROCESS

??????????? Science, real science, focuses on the PROCESS of discovery about phenomena in the natural world.? Science is not the collection of facts that a student might find in a Biology, Physics, Geology, Astronomy, or Chemistry text.? This picture of science is different from public perception.?

??????????? Science texts often discuss two types of proof: deductive and inductive.? As a practical matter, science does not often use deduction and most often uses induction.?

??????????? Deductive logic uses a formal argument structure.? The classic deductive argument is:?

All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man.

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.??????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Deductive logic follows a mathematical structure and can be manipulated using mathematical rules.? It’s very useful in mathematics and formal logic, but often not very useful in science. ??You might be one of the rare people who like to unravel syllogisms as a hobby. But let me remind you that Boolean Algebra - the basis of logic that your the computer is using right now - was originally devised for this particular application.

??????????? Scientists mostly use induction, where they view the world, make generalizations, and develop hypotheses to explain them.? A deductive proof is true or not; it is all or nothing.? Inductive proofs come in different shades of certainty.? (More discussion will cover this in the next section.)?

Texts in science courses usually outline “the scientific method” to represent the process of discovery.

observations or experiments--> testable hypothesis --> predictions --> more tests --> theory

??????????? In the scientific view, a theory provides a unifying principle that brings a group of ideas together.? In this use, a theory has a huge amount of supporting data behind it to the point that it is accepted as true by the scientific community; it is proven, in as much as anything in science can proven true.?

??????????? The National Academy of Sciences, the scientific advisory group established by the U. S. Congress in 1863 to advise the federal government on scientific matters, defined these terms in a recently published (1998) document on evolution curriculum in secondary schools.? (This study and document responded to a concern by their members that evolution curriculum was being neglected or actively suppressed in secondary schools.)? Their definitions are as good as any:?

Fact ??????????????? In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed.

Law???????????????? A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.

Hypothesis????? A testable statement about the natural world that can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.

Theory ??????????? In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

??????????? Again, the Academy here shows the true definition of the term theory as used in the scientific community.? Theory does not imply uncertainty, it means the opposite.? By applying the term theory to an organizing principle it means that the idea is “well-substantiated” and accepted as true.? Although scientists themselves sometime get sloppy with the term, the term theory should be reserved for those unifying ideas that are “universally, or virtually universally accepted by the scientific community” or “known to be true” in as much as any idea in science can be proven to be true.

??????????? Thus the scientific definition of a “Theory’ differs significantly from the public “street term” definition of Theory.? To most non-scientists, a Theory might be a wild idea that has yet to be studied.? To a scientist, a Theory has so much evidence behind it that all new research will be performed with the assumption that it is true.? In street usage someone might say, “in theory, it should work.”?? In science if you say “according to theory,” you are as certain that it WILL work as you are that the sun will rise tomorrow.???

??????????? Political groups have exploited these different definitions in their effort to label evolution as “just a theory.”? Scientists would be happy to call evolution a theory, since that’s what they do call it, if theory meant that “we have great confidence that this is how the natural world really operates.”?

According to science philosopher Robert Pennock:?

??????????? “Philosophers ...discussed this as the inference to the best explanation.? In this method one assumes a hypothesis for the sake of investigation, asks what would follow empirically if it were true, and checks its probable consequences against the phenomena.? One way to do this is to make a prediction based upon the hypothesis and then to see whether the prediction is borne out.? Because it is no mean feat to correctly predict the unknown, if the prediction from the hypothesis is successful then this is good reason to infer that the hypothesis is likely to be true.? On the other hand, if the prediction turns out to be incorrect then this is good reason to infer that the hypothesis is false.? Actually, one does not really require a prediction of a future observation; what are called “retrodictions” or “postdictions” of past phenomena also work.? The key feature of this form of inference is not whether the data occurs in the future or in the past or in the present, but whether it stands in the proper stands in the proper relation to the hypothesis.? What we are looking for is that the hypothesis is able to adequately explain the observed pattern of data.? Hypotheses that are inadequate must either be modified or else be rejected in favor of a better alternative. ”

??????????? He goes on to explain the ability of induction to derive generalizations:

“In introducing ... induction to students, philosophers of science sometimes express the difference with a couple of metaphors.? It is a mistake to think that scientists investigate the world as though they simply carried around a bucket into which they collected whatever facts they happen to stumble upon.? Science is more than a collection of observations.? Scientists are not passive observers but active researchers who seek out and bring new knowledge to light by following out the consequences of their hypotheses.? We should thus think of scientists not as simply using a collection bucket, but as using a flashlight.? One tests a hypothesis as one tests a flashlight - by turning it on and seeing whether and how well it can illuminate one’s surroundings.? If the light is dim one might have to twiddle the bulb or to clean the contacts.? If it provides no light at all one might have to put in some batteries or just get a whole new flashlight.?? Particularly powerful theories are like searchlights that shed a broad, bright, and sharply focused beam upon the world, allowing us to clearly see and distinguish its features.”

??????????? Of course, the searchlight analogy shows the inherent danger of this approach.? To carry the metaphor, the searchlight does not allow you to hear sounds.? A hypothesis serves as a powerful lens to view a phenomenon, but any researcher must be careful about the bias that it may bring to the observation.????

??????????? There have been sociologists and anthropologists who have studied the process of science in a way that they might study a culture or civilization other than their own.? Sociologist Robert Merton suggested that science has four characteristics: universalism, communalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism.? Universalism means that a scientific observation or idea does not depend upon the scientist who is doing the experiment or the location where it is being done.? As an extension of this principle, the laws of physics in distant galaxies are assumed (and observed) to be the same as on earth.? Communalism means that science is not an individual activity, but that it is performed by a society of scientists.? Scientists build upon previous work, and their work is used by the generations of scientists following them.? The principle of disinterestedness means that the commitment to the truth is the most important principle.? The organized skepticism might be the most important element of science.? This principle means that all ideas should be held to scrutiny and debated.? All experiments should be reported in the scientific literature in such a way that another researcher can repeat the experiment and obtain the same result.? The key characteristic of a scientist is the ability to maintain skepticism about every idea and result.? This critical review (at the college level we call this process critical thinking and we are supposed to build this into every class) of scientific papers means that it is the responsibility of scientists to view all results as if they were being reported by politicians or used car salesmen.?

Scientific Reporting and Publishing?

??????????? In this way scientific ideas are carefully scrutinized and self correcting.? The principle of peer review rules scientific reporting.? A research team carries out a series of experiments and interprets the results.? They write up the results and interpretations and submit a paper to a scientific journal.? The editor of the journal receives the paper, and sends it to at least three researchers in that particular field who have sufficient knowledge to analyze the experiment and its conclusion.? Were the experiments properly performed?? Did the experimental team run the appropriate control experiments?? Are there other explanations that explain the results?? This team of “peer reviewers” then send their comments and criticisms of the experiments anonymously to the editor.? The original research team receives these criticisms and then must do additional experiments to answer the criticisms of the review team and to eliminate any alternate explanations that they may have proposed.? After they perform these additional experiments, they rewrite and resubmit the paper to the journal.? Once the paper is published, readers of the journal are trained to still view the results and analysis critically. Again, this stresses the importance of science as a communal activity.?