What is “Inquiry in the Natural World”?

1. What is “Inquiry in the Natural World”? Clare 102 - Inquiry in the Natural World Ted Georgian 19 January 2005

2. Natty-world is a great course - really!

3. Two simple questions: • What is the “natural world”? • What does it mean to “inquire” about it?

4. What is the “natural world”? http://www.howardhallis.com/artgallery/tpoe/index.html

5. What’s a “physical object”? http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Dec/10/ln/ln12a.html

6. Is “love” a physical object”?

7. Are there physical objects that we can’t sense? Dogs know who’s been at the fire hydrant

8. Are there physical object that we can’t sense? Do Honey bees see objects that we can’t? Medical and Scientific Photography: An online resource for doctors, scientists and students (http://msp.rmit.edu.au/Article_01/13.html)

9. Are there physical objects that we can’t sense? Modern instruments have greatly extended our detection abilities

10. Can we make predictions about the natural world? Given a knowledge of the “laws” of physics, can you predict where this car will go if you release the parking brake?

11. Can we make predictions about the natural world? Given the same knowledge of the “laws” of physics, can you predict where a car will go if it’s hijacked by a 14-year old?

12. What’s “inquiry” in the natural world?

13. Scientists ask a lot of questions, like kids Some common questions kids ask: • Why is the sky blue? • Where do babies come from? • Why does the moon follow my car? And my favorite: • How can a brown cow eat green grass and make white milk? home.att.net/~rwskinner/ pictures/brown-cow-2.jpg

14. Two different sorts of answers 1. Descriptions “The sky is dark blue.” http://www.albforumi.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=000024;p= • Explanations“The sky is blue because …” www.sciencemadesimple.com/ sky_blue.html

15. Why inquire into the natural world? Two fundamental reasons: • Curiosity • Problem solving

16. Curiosity-driven science • Basic or “pure” • Often leads to surprisingly practical discoveries Teflon Lasers DNA Serena Parente Charlebois Flubber (?) X-rays

17. Problem-solving science • Applied or “practical” • Gives us substantial power over the natural world Contraceptives Weapons Transgenic crops Internal combustion engines Computers

18. Problem-solving science http://www.colostate.edu/programs/lifesciences/TrangenicCrops

19. Why do physical objects behave the way they do? Anthropomorphic explanation

20. Why do physical objects behave the way they do? Mechanistic explanation

21. A complex and very general explanation is often called a “Model” Isaac Newton’s model of “Universal Gravitation” darwin.apnet.com/ www/ap/newton.htm www.prometheus-delft.org/ Isaac%20Newton.jpg http://www.metaresearch.org/cosmology/cosmology.asp

22. Newton’s model of “Universal Gravitation” has been very successful Craft launched to dive into cometBy MARCIA DUNN Associated Press1/13/2005 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A NASA spacecraft with a Hollywood name - Deep Impact - blasted off Wednesday on a mission to smash a hole in a comet and give scientists a glimpse of the frozen primordial ingredients of the solar system. With a launch window only one second long, Deep Impact rocketed away at the designated moment on a six-month, 268 million-mile journey to comet Tempel 1. It will be a one-way trip that NASA hopes will reach a cataclysmic end on the Fourth of July. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before. Little is known about comet Tempel 1, other than that it is an icy, rocky body about nine miles long and three miles wide. Buffalo News, 13 Jan 2005, A8

23. How do we investigate physical objects? perl.plover.com/yak/ regex/samples/slide004.html www.geocities.com/ jkostaras/big_ben.jpg

24. What are physical objects made of? Here’s one early idea – “atomism”(Leucippus and Democritus, ~ 500 BC) Trefil, J. & R. M. Hazen. The Sciences. 2nd ed. P. 163

25. What are physical objects made of? Here’s an alternate view – “elementalism” http://astsun.astro.virginia.edu/~jh8h/Foundations/chapter2.html Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)

26. Aristotle’s “model” of physical objects Here’s how it worked: http://www.chem.uidaho.edu/~honors/history.html

27. Aristotle’s “model” was widely accepted as “true” from ~ 300 B.C. until ~ 1700s

28. Atomism was revived in the 1800s John Dalton, 1808. A New System of Chemistry

29. How do scientists decide which explanations are best? Democritus Aristotle

30. The “hypothetico-deductive” scientific method More of a description of what usually works than a set of directions that every scientist follows Still – no better way of investigating the natural world has been invented inthe past 400 years

31. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) • Stressed observation over philosophical speculation • Proposed a new method of studying nature • Argued that if we understand nature we can dominate it

32. Steps in the scientific method Step 1: Observations

33. Steps in the scientific method Step 1 a: decide what to study Too much Better http://svdp.org/santaclara/images/Car_Lot.jpg

34. Steps in the scientific method In western New York, cars in winter! http://www.bigfoto.com/themes/nature/winter/ http://www.heatherandpatrick.com/Kitten-Library/details.php?photoID=194 http://www.budinas.narod.ru/current/winter4/winter4e.htm

35. How can we answer our questions about the natural world? This step uses a process calledInductive Reasoning in which we develop a rule based on many individual examples Step 1b: look for a general pattern

36. Steps in the scientific method Step 1b: look for a general pattern http://emd.wa.gov/5-ppt/trng/pubed/winterprep/starting-car-cold.htm

37. How can we answer our questions about the natural world? A useful hypothesis: Step 2: Think up explanations (hypotheses) for the patterns observed

38. Steps in the scientific method Step 2: Think up explanations (hypotheses) for the patterns observed 1. Car won’t start because the coolant is frozen solid. 2. Car won’t start because the battery is too weak. 3. Car won’t start because it wants to be in Florida and it’s sulking. 4. Car won’t start because snow banks are actually alien spaceships and the aliens have ray guns that disable cars.

39. Ockham’s “Razor” Start with the simplest possible explanation and go to more complex explanations only if the simpler explanations don’t work. William of Ockham (1280 – 1347)

40. But the natural world isn’t necessarily simple! “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."  --  Albert Einstein (1879-1955) sprott.physics.wisc.edu/ images/einstein.jpg

41. Steps in the scientific method • These two seem like reasonable hypotheses: • Car won’t start because the coolant is frozen solid. • Car won’t start because the battery is too weak. How can we tell which hypothesis is a better explanation of our observations?

42. How can we answer our questions about the natural world? This step uses a process calledDeductive reasoning in which we use the rules of logic to generate a prediction Step 3: Make a testable prediction

43. Steps in the scientific method IFthe trouble starting the car is caused by the coolant being frozen, Step 3: Make a testable prediction THEN we should see ice when we open the radiator cap.

44. Steps in the scientific method A good experiment: 1.2. 3. Step 4: Make observations or do experiments to test our explanations

45. Steps in the scientific method Observation: open the radiator cap and look. Result: antifreeze is fine – not frozen. Step 4: Make observations or do experiments to test our explanations Now what???

46. Start over again!

47. Steps in the scientific method IFthe trouble starting the car is caused by the battery being weaker at low temperatures, Step 3: Make a testable prediction THENreplacing the battery should enable the car to start on cold mornings

48. Steps in the scientific method Observations: use a voltmeter to test the battery each time the car won’t start Experiment: try a new battery Step 4: Make observations or do experiments to test our explanations

49. Good experiments have: Replication The experiment needs to be repeated by other people on many other cars before we can be sure it’s generally reliable. Controls Need 2+ identical cars Experimental car: remove old battery and install a new one. Control car: remove old battery and reinstall it.

50. How can we test Aristotle’s model? http://www.chem.uidaho.edu/~honors/history.html Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)