1. Characteristics of a Scientist: Curiosity, Creativity, and Commitment
The Three C’s

2. Science Defined by its way of thinking Scientists ask questions
Not defined by its technology or its accomplishments
Scientists ask questions
You can ask questions about anything
Scientists must tolerate uncertainty, because some questions cannot be easily or quickly answered

3. Scientists Endless curiosity Pervasive skepticism Prepared minds
Challenging old ideas
Proposing new idea
Sometimes upsetting authorities
Prepared minds
Recognizing interesting phenomena

4. Science and Art Often thought of as polar opposites
Science as precise and constrained
Art as free flowing and creative
This dichotomy is false
Scientists and artists share a creative drive to understand and represent reality
Creative people are often gifted in both science and art (e.g., Leonardo da Vinci)

5. Acquiring Knowledge Tenacity: “It has always been that way.”
Intuition: “It feels true.”
Authority: “The boss says it is true.”
Rationalism: “It makes sense logically.”
Empiricism: “I observed it to be true.”
Science: A combination of rationalism and empiricism.

6. Rationalism
Using reason (logic) to derive new knowledge from old knowledge
Reliable conclusions can be derived from established facts if one uses logic.
Limitation
By itself, rationalism has no way of verifying the accuracy of the facts.

7. Empiricism Naïve Empiricism Sophisticated Empiricism
Literally need to see it to believe it
Severely limits what could be studied, because many interesting things cannot be directly observed (e.g., gravity)
Sophisticated Empiricism
Allows one to study both
things you can see directly
other things that produce effects you can see and measure
Accepts indirect evidence

8. Science Rationalism Empiricism
To derive theories from existing observations
To derive predictions from theories to test empirically
Empiricism
To provide the initial facts on which theories might rest
To test the predictions from theories by seeing if they are accurate

9. History of Science Science developed over thousands of years
Combination of rationalism and empiricism
Sometimes empiricism dominated
Sometimes rationalism dominated
Eventually they were combined into science as we know it

10. Early Civilization Early civilizations developed practical skills
Passed from generation to generation
Focus was on the practical, rather than the abstract principles
Orderliness belief: The universe behaves in an orderly, lawful manner

11. Greek Science Greeks contributed much to science
Thales was one of the first to combine rationalism and empiricism.
Strato introduced experimentation.
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle moved away from empiricism to an emphasis on rationalism as a way to understand what they believed was a mystical universe.

12. Medieval Science Research in the service of religion
To demonstrate the hand of God
Some religious scholars encouraged research
Thomas Aquinas & Roger Bacon
Science eventually becoming a tool in the “service of humanity”
But science and religion clashed

13. The Scientific Revolution
Based on
Rediscovery of earlier scholarship
New discoveries with immediate benefits
The new universities nourish science and research
Increased scientific understanding fueled technological development

14. Modern Science Vast enterprise Remarkable new discoveries
Supported by governments
Valuable to society
Tremendous growth in the last century
Remarkable new discoveries
Which led to new technologies
Which led to more discoveries

15. Summary Science is a way of thinking
Many ways to gain knowledge, science being one of them
Science combines rationalism and empiricism
Science has a long history built originally on the practical values of empiricism
Modern science is a huge social enterprise

16. Noted Scientist: Leonardo da Vinci
The prototype for the Renaissance Man
Artist, engineer, inventor, anatomist
Integrated art and science seamlessly

17. Noted Scientist: Sir Isaac Newton
"Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" called "Principia" is acknowledged as the greatest scientific book ever published.
Sir Isaac Newton wrote this in 1687.

18. Note Scientist: Charles Darwin
One of the people who developed the theory of evolution through natural selection.
Arguably the most significant scientist in history.

19. Noted Scientist: Albert Einstein
He is certainly at the pinnacle, if the popularity of all the scientists is taken into account. He demonstrated solutions to a trio of mind-boggling topics in physics in 1905 and shot into the limelight.