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A Description of the Methods of the Natural Sciences

A Description of the Methods of the Natural Sciences. Steve Badger, PhD Professor of Chemistry Evangel University. What is Science?. This description is limited to “the natural sciences” E.g., physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Not the “social sciences” or the “behavioral sciences”.

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A Description of the Methods of the Natural Sciences

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  1. A Description of the Methods of the Natural Sciences Steve Badger, PhD Professor of Chemistry Evangel University

  2. What is Science? • This description is limited to “the natural sciences” • E.g., physics, chemistry, biology, etc. • Not the “social sciences” or the “behavioral sciences”

  3. How can we define science? • Dictionary? • Textbook? • A scientist? • A survey?

  4. Who defines “science”? • Scientists? • Linguists? • Philosophers? • Judges and lawyers? • Man on the street?

  5. A legal definition The essential characteristics of science: 1. Guided by natural law 2. Explanatory by reference to natural law 3. Testable against the empirical world 4. Conclusions are tentative 5. Falsifiable (Judge William Overton, Dec 1981, Little Rock, AR)

  6. Dr. J. P. Moreland counters: None of these is a necessary and sufficient condition for “science” Christianity and the Nature of Science, pp23-35 J. P. Moreland

  7. Dr. J. P. Moreland counters: • Moreland examines these one-by-one and cites an example of “science” that does not meet each criterion • He then cites an example of “non-science” that does meet each criterion

  8. Moreland concludes: • “We have seen that a generally agreed on set of necessary and sufficient conditions for something to count as science has not been found” (p.42)

  9. What follows is… • A natural scientist’s attempt to describe a generalized “scientific method” (for the natural sciences) • Most natural scientists would probably accept this schema—or one very much like it.

  10. The Scientific Method A Way of Knowing

  11. Characteristics of The Scientific Method • Empirical • Objective v. subjective • Experimental • Reproducible • Independent verification • Self-correcting

  12. The Scientific Method: An Outline 1. On the basis of having observed everything related to the problem/question, state the problem to be solved/the question to be answered. 2. Find out what is already known about the problem/question. Typically this involves a literature search.

  13. The Scientific Method: An Outline 3. Using what data are available, form a hypothesis, a tentative explanation that seems to fit everything knownabout the problem/question to this point. 4. Construct univariate, controlled experiments to try to test the hypothesis.

  14. The Scientific Method: An Outline 5. The observedresults of the experiment will provoke the researcher to... A. Continue testing the hypothesis as it is...OR... B. Modify the hypothesis and continue testing it...OR... C. Discard the hypothesis and form a new one to be tested.

  15. The Scientific Method: An Outline In each case, the researcher using the SM cycles between #4 and #5...until... 6. At some point the body of evidence supporting the hypothesis may become so great that we re-label it theory. 7. Construct univariate, controlled experiments to try to test the theory.

  16. The Scientific Method: An Outline 8. The observedresults of the experiment will provoke the researcher to... A. Continue testing the theory as it is...OR... B. Modify the theory and continue testing it...OR... C. Discard the theory and form a new theory to be tested.

  17. The Scientific Method: An Outline In each case, the researcher using the SM cycles between #7 and #8...until... 9. At some point the body of evidence supporting the theory may become so great that it is acknowledged to be universally true. At this point, we re-label it scientific law or principle.

  18. What makes a discipline “science”? It uses a form of the scientific method • Name some disciplines that are “science” • Name some disciplines that are not “science” • Name some disciplines that are part “science” and part “non-science”

  19. What makes a question or a statement “scientific”? A statement or question is scientific if it can be tested using the scientific method Try these: 1. “Matter is made up of particles so tiny that they never will be discovered.” 2. “Mars is composed of cottage cheese.”

  20. Not everything that claims to be science is science.Consider some examples of pseudoscience.

  21. The Un-open-able Green Box Use any of your five senses to help you draw representations of what is in the Un-Open-Able Green Box

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