What is Science

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What is Science?

• Had we never seen the stars, and the sun, and
  the heaven, none of the words which we have
  spoken about the Universe would ever have been
  uttered. But now the sight of day and night, and
  the months and the revolutions of the years, have
  created number, and have given us a conceptions
  of time, and the power of enquiring about the
  nature of the Universe and from this source we
  have derived philosophy, than which no greater
  good ever was or will be given by the gods to
  mortal man.
• -Plato

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Main Ideas in Todays Lecture

• Why Study Science?
• An attempt at a precise definition of Science.
• What is not science

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A Buddhist Temple in Chiang Mai Paradox and
Confusion must be conquered before approaching
truth.
Truth (Buddha)
Paradox
Confusion
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Sunday school in Bangkok. Notice the
concentration evident on the faces of most of the
students finding truth is hard work.
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Why Study Science?

• Know your world
• Appreciate your world
• Understand your world
• Control your world

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Housing
Traditional housing in the Yucatan, Mexico
A Favela in Rio de Janeiro. The benefits of
modern technology are sometimes not apparent.
The Shanghai skyline- Modern in the extreme
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Transportation
Modern travelers can reach anywhere on the globe
in a matter of days or hours, with essentially no
risk.
A Traditional Form of Transportation
Daily travel sometimes has a negative effect on
ones life.
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Medicine
Artificial Heart Surgery at the UofA
Despite advances, we are, in some ways, a very
unhealthy society.
A Witch Doctor
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Science and Public Policy

• Climate Change
• Evolution versus Creationism
• Stem Cell Research
• Etc.

An optimistic observer of modern culture would
claim that intelligent and well informed citizens
will need to make decisions on these issues. A
pessimistic observer of modern culture might
think otherwise.
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A compilation of data on science literacy and
education published recently by the
federally-funded National Science Foundation
(NSF) suggests that Americans are likely to have
serious misconceptions about the scientific
process, incorrect knowledge of scientific facts,
and strong beliefs in pseudoscientific theories
2. For instance, only 45 of Americans surveye
d knew that electrons are smaller than atoms, and
only 23 were able satisfactorily to explain what
it means to engage in scientific study. About one
fourth of those surveyed professed to believe in
astrology, and about one third of Americans
believe astrology to be sort of scientific.
Quoted from The Triple Helix
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From Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate,
by Dr. Gary Gereffi and Vivek Wadhwa (Duke Pratt
Engineering School)
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Observing and Experimenting

• Science attempts to explain nature.
• Nature is probed with observation
  Experimentation.
  
• Observations constitute the objective record of
  characteristics of nature.
  
• Though experiments we establish a specific
  physical situation and observe the results.
  
• In both cases abstraction is required because we
  focus only on a subset of specific
  characteristics and on small scale of the
  Universe.

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Finding Patterns

• Accurate observations and recording is not
  enough. Scientists seek to find a pattern that
  is repeatable and holds in many circumstances.

Science may be described as the art of
systematic over-simplification.- Karl Popper
Karl Popper, Philosopher of Science. The Logic
of Scientific Discovery
Sir Karl Raimund Popper was born in Vienna on 28
July 1902. His rise from a modest background as
an assistant cabinet maker and school teacher to
one of the most influential theorists and leading
philosophers was characteristically Austrian.
Popper commanded international audiences and
conversation with him was an intellectual
adventure - even if a little rough -, animated by
a myriad of philosophical problems. His intense
desire to tear away at the veneer of falsity in
pursuit of the truth lead him to contribute to a
field of thought encompassing (among others)
political theory, quantum mechanics, logic,
scientific method and evolutionary theory.
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Looking for Patterns

• Science starts with the recognition of repeatable
  patterns in phenomenon.
  
• The art of science lies in finding interesting
  patterns that tell us something about workings of
  overlapping (cluttered) phenomena in the
  Universe.
• The best way to describe patterns is with
  equations because specific, quantifiable
  predictions are made.

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Some Patterns in Nature
Possible sand dunes on Saturns moon, Titan.
Sand Dunes in Namibia, Planet Earth
Sand Dunes on Mars.
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The pattern that started it all.
This photograph was made by leaving the shutter
of a stationary camera open for an entire night.
The lines track the motions of the stars as they
appear to move through the sky. You can see this
also without a camera, but it requires careful
observation. The observation of this patterns ra
ises many questions. Why do the stars move?
Whats special about that point that doesnt
move? Do all heavenly objects follow this
pattern, or are there exceptions?
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Hypotheses and Theories

• Observations and/or experiments must be repeated
  and reproducible by other scientists.
  
• The only useful hypotheses are those that are
  falsifiable, that is they make specific
  predictions that are testable and can be proven
  wrong. If the predictions are wrong, the theory
  is discarded.
• The only truth in science, the only authority
  that matters, are observations and experiments.
  Science does not rely upon belief or appeal to
  authority, it relies upon testing.
• Prejudice and pre-conceived notions are difficult
  to get rid of or even to be aware of. Progress
  in science has often been the recognition and
  removal of incorrect assumptions.

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Scientific Theories must be Falsifiable (Karl
Popper)
The Earth is at the center of the solar system.
This theory is incorrect, but it is falsifiable
because it make specific predictions that can be
tested to determine if the theory is correct.
Freudian Analysis is sometimes useful. This may
be true, but it is not falsifiable. There is
not experiment, observation, or test that can
prove the theory false, that Freudian analysis is
never useful thus, the theory is not falsifiable.
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What is not Science?

• Astrology
• Creationism
• Belief in UFOs
• Psychic Phenomena
• The X Files
• Almost anything you see on late night T.V.

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What is Creationism?
Creationism or creation theology is the belief
that humans, life, the Earth, and the universe
were created by a supreme being or deity's
supernatural intervention. The intervention may
be seen either as an act of creation from nothing
(ex nihilo) or the emergence of order from
pre-existing chaos.Most who hold "creation"
beliefs consider such belief to be a part of
religious faith, and compatible with, or
otherwise unaffected by scientific views, while
others maintain that scientific data supports
creationism. Proponents of theistic evolution may
claim that understood scientific mechanisms are
simply aspects of supreme creation. Otherwise,
science-oriented believers may consider the
scriptural account of creation as simply a
metaphor.Those who hold literal creation views
often reject views of science and certain
scientific theories in particular. Most notable
is the rejection of evolution and its
implications for current evolutionary biology.
While the general idea of natural selection may
fit into various particular views, the
evolutionary concept of common descent ?that
humans are "descended from lesser creatures" - is
a point of great issue with most creation
believers. Most creationists also dispute
evolutionary theories about the origin of life,
origin of the human species, the geological
history of the Earth, the formation of the solar
system, and the origin of the physical
universe. Wikipedia
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Public Opinions on Evolution
Opinions in USA (Pew Forum of Religion and Public
Life, August 2005.)
Opinions in Europe (UN Planet Project)
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Is Creationism Science?

• Creationism is not falsifiable. There are no
  observations or experiments which can prove it
  incorrect.
  
• Creationism relies on an authority other than
  observation and experiment.
  
• There is no pattern in nature that creationism
  attempts to explain. Its intent is not
  knowledge of the natural world.

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What is Intelligent Design?
The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that
certain features of the universe and of living
things are best explained by an intelligent cause
rather than an undirected process such as
natural selection. ID is thus a scientific
disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary
theory that the apparent design of living systems
is an illusion. http//www.intelligentdesig
nnetwork.org/
Problems. Not a theory on its own, but a critici
sm of evolution. Generates no new hypothesis.
Cannot be tested Is not falsifiable.
Thinly veiled reworking of creationism creatio
nism in a bad tuxedo.
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How do we determine if there is a scientific
consensus on an issue?

• Consult Scientific Societies, i.e. the National
  Academy of Sciences.
  
• Read the peer-reviewed literature
• Scientists of all types publish their
  results as articles in professional journals. To
  be published the article must be approved by an
  editor who is advised by 1-3 other scientists
  that are experts on the topic in question.

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National Academy of Science Position on
Creationism
Science and Creationism A View from the National
Academy of Sciences, Second Edition (1999)
While the mechanisms of evolution are still under
investigation, scientists universally accept that
the cosmos, our planet, and life evolved and
continue to evolve. Yet the teaching of evolution
to schoolchildren is still a contentious issue.
In Science and Creationism, the NAS states
unequivocally that creationism has no place in
any science curriculum at any level. Briefly and
clearly, this booklet explores the nature of
science, reviews the evidence for the origin of
the universe and Earth, and explains the current
scientific understanding of biological evolution.
This edition includes new insights from astronomy
and molecular biology. read FREE online FREE
download http//www.nap.edu/books/0309064066/html
/

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The Peer-Reviewed Literature
There are approximately 9 papers on Intelligent
Design in the peer-reviewed literature. This is
less than one weeks worth of published papers on
biological evolution. Moreover, many of the 9
papers mentioned above only deal with the
question in a peripheral way or are limited only
to criticizing evolution, rather than advancing
another theory.
Remember, the only relevant authorities in
Science are experiment and observation. The
nearly complete acceptance of evolutionary
biology by the scientific community does not mean
that it is correct. However, it is clear that it
is incorrect to say that there is a split in the
scientific community over the question of
creationism/intelligent design. There is very
near universal agreement against
creationism/intelligent design.
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Is Evolution Correct?

• No scientific theory should be viewed as
  completely correct. Remember, a theory must be
  falsifiable and therefore subject to future
  improvements.
• The theory of evolution is complex and
  multi-faceted. Some of it may be correct and
  some may require revision.
  
• Changes to well-established theories usually
  incorporate and extend the successes of the
  earlier theories. Changes are usually gradual,
  not revolutionary, though there are exceptions.
• It is important to criticize evolution and
  advances will be made, but this doesnt mean that
  the whole theory should be discarded.
  
• A more sensible question is Is the evidence for
  evolution strong enough that we should be
  studying biology within this framework, or should
  we discard it and find a different framework?

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News Report on the Battle Over the Teaching of
Evolution
Kansas Board Approves Challenges to Evolution
By JODI WILGOREN (NYT) 1134 words
Published November 9, 2005 CORRECTION APPENDED
The fiercely split Kansas Board of Education
voted 6 to 4 on Tuesday to adopt new science
standards that are the most far-reaching in the n
ation in challenging Darwin's theory of evolution
in the classroom. The standards move beyond the b
road mandate for critical analysis of evolution
that four other states have established in recent
years, by recommending that schools teach
specific points that doubters of evolution use
to undermine its primacy in science education. A
mong the most controversial changes was a
redefinition of science itself, so that it would
not be explicitly limited to natural explanations
. (Instructors emphasis)