350 likes | 675 Views
What is Science?. Science =. . A set of facts and the theories that explain the facts.. Whatever's being done by institutions carrying on
E N D
1. Science and the Scientific Method An Introduction for Paramedic Students
3. Popular Fictions The goal of science is to accumulate facts
Science distorts reality and can’t do justice to the fullness of human experience.
Scientific knowledge is truth.
Science is concerned primarily with solving practical and social problems.
4. So then, what is Science?
5. The Heart of the Matter
7. Mythos
8. Thales of Miletus The Father of Greek Science, Philosophy, and Mathematics
Man is capable of understanding nature.
Natural phenomena have natural explanations.
9. Logos “The Word”
An account of the facts whose truth can be demonstrated and debated
10. Aristotle Developed “logos” into “logic”
Advocated deductive reasoning as a tool for understanding nature
Dominated scientific thinking for the next 2000 years
11. Deduction Reasoning from the general to the specific
“All men are mortal.” (major premise)
“Socrates is a man.” (minor premise)
“Therefore, Socrates is mortal.” (conclusion)
Always produces correct answers if the premises are correct.
12. The Problems of Deduction The conclusions are only as good as the premises.
Because it moves from general to specific cases, deduction does not generate new knowledge.
13. The Problem with Aristotle He didn’t advocate the use of experiments or observations to check the validity of premises.
He was a pure rationalist.
“Thinking about it is good enough.”
14. Francis Bacon If you want to know how the world works, begin with the facts. Not prejudices about what the facts are.
Infer general instances from specific observations.
Draw conclusions about future events from past observations.
15. Induction Reasons from the specific to the general
Can generate new knowledge
However, the accuracy of that new knowledge can NEVER be proven with 100% certainty
16. Galileo If you have a theory about how a phenomenon works, test it with an experiment.
During an experiment, try to control all of the variables except the one you are interested in.
17. Isaac Newton Mathematics is the language of nature.
The world of observation can be encoded into mathematical form.
Mathematical forms can be decoded into new statements about reality.
18. The Scientific Method
20. Are about kinds of events, not any single event
Show relationships between two or more kinds of events
Are supported by a large amount of experimental data
Are applicable to a variety of different events
21. An Example: Boyle’s Law In 1662, Irish chemist Robert Boyle studied the effects of pressure changes on the volume of gases.
22. An Example: Boyle’s Law His experimental results showed that as pressure increases, the volume of a gas decreases proportionately.
PV = constant
So, if we decrease the volume of a container, we can predict how much the pressure of the gas inside will increase.
23. An Example: Boyle’s Law Boyle’s work was later combined with that of Jacques Charles and Joseph Gay-Lussac to produce the Ideal Gas Law.
PV = nRT
The Ideal Gas Law predicts the behavior of gases over a wide range of temperatures, pressures, and volumes.
There’s just one problem:
24. We need a theory!!! A means of relating the laws describing a class of events to a framework and a set of principles described in terms differing from those used for the laws.
The observations predicted by the Ideal Gas Law are explained by the Kinetic Theory of Gases.
25. The Kinetic Theory of Gases
26. The Kinetic Theory of Gases
27. A Good Theory Is...
28. Why there are no scientific “truths”
29. Falsifiability
30. Norms of Science
31. The Hallmarks of Pseudoscience
32. The Hallmarks of Pseudoscience
33. Eight Important Points Anecdotes do NOT make science
Scientific language does NOT make science
Bold statements do NOT make claims true
Heresy does NOT equal correctness
34. Eight Important Points Rumors do NOT equal reality
Unexplained is NOT inexplicable
Correlation does NOT mean causation
Coincidence does NOT mean connection
35. Always remember... “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.”