TaK – Natural Sciences But Bob…in a quantum world - how can we be sure? Oh Alice… you’re the one for me!

TaK – Natural Sciences What are the Natural Sciences? What differentiates them from the Human Sciences?

TaK – Natural Sciences All national education systems take the view that it is important to study science. Why?

TaK – Natural Sciences 1543 Where do we begin?

TaK – Natural Sciences Ptolemy 90 – c.168 ADCopernicus

TaK – Natural Sciences Key to the discoveries and developments of science have been: Proper standards of measurement Paper & printing A common language of scholarship (Latin) Developments in instrumentation

TaK – Natural Sciences With telescopes and microscopes, enquirers (scientists) have made rapid progress in putting questions to nature, and in formulating answers

TaK – Natural Sciences “Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house” Henri Poincare

TaK – Natural Sciences The facts are coming!

TaK – Natural Sciences “We found that the theory did not fit the facts – and we were delighted, because this is how science advances” O.R. Frisch

TaK – Natural Sciences Can we talk about ‘scientific truths*’ or should we talk about ‘scientific beliefs*’? *a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle *confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof

TaK – Natural Sciences Standard Theory of Matter All matter is made up of: If you cannot observe something directly, what is it you do in order to justify your belief in the fact that it exists? Has anyone directly observed these entities? If not, then what makes scientists believe they exist?

TaK – Natural Sciences Large Hadron CERN, Switzerland

TaK – Natural Sciences “The progress of science is strewn, like an ancient desert trail, with the bleached skeletons of discarded theories which once seemed to possess eternal life” Arthur Koestler

TaK – Natural Sciences Can you think of examples of things that were believed to be true by 19 th century scientists, but which we now know to be false?

TaK – Natural Sciences Who is a Scientist?

TaK – Natural Sciences Who is a Scientist? By temperament … some scientists are Collectors some are Classifiers some are Compulsive Tidiers some are Detectives some are Explorers some are Artists some are Poet-Scientists some are Philosopher Scientists … and more

TaK – Natural Sciences Who is a Scientist? In the broadest sense, we all can be… ‘Science’ – from the Latin ‘scientia’, meaning Knowledge ‘Science’ – an enterprise that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the natural world

TaK – Natural Sciences “Science is a way of thinking more than it is a body of knowledge” Carl Sagan

TaK – Natural Sciences Searching for, and finding, ‘Patterns’: All bodies fall to earth All plants… All metals… All liquids… All chromosomes…

TaK – Natural Sciences Problems with Induction: Reasoning from the observed, to the unobserved How many observations should be made before we jump to a generalisation?

TaK – Natural Sciences The scientific method Put in order: 1.Test with experiments 2.Ask questions 3.Think! Try again 4.Draw conclusion 5.Report results 6.Background research 7.Observation 8.Construct hypothesis 9.Analyze results

TaK – Natural Sciences Observation Ask question Background research Construct hypothesis Test with experiment Analyze results Draw conclusion Hypothesis is True Hypothesis is False or partially True Report results Think! Try again Think! Try again

TaK – Natural Sciences ….. from Results you may be able to develop a Law* which can then lead to a Theory*. *A scientific Law is a distillation of the results of repeated observation. It does not offer an explanation of phenomena. *A Theory explains a wide range of phenomena on the basis of a small number of key ideas. A model of reality.

TaK – Natural Sciences The scientific method Problems with Observation: Relevance Selectivity Expectations Expert seeing Observer effect

TaK – Natural Sciences The scientific method Problems with testing Hypotheses: Confirmation bias Background assumptions

TaK – Natural Sciences The scientific method Problems with testing Hypotheses: What makes a hypothesis a good hypothesis? Okay …. So here’s how it works…

TaK – Natural Sciences “We’ve discovered a massive dust and gas cloud which is either the beginning of a new star, or just an awful lot of dust and gas.”

TaK – Natural Sciences “You are completely free to carry out whatever research you want, so long as you come to these conclusions”

TaK – Natural Sciences

Pseudo-science

TaK – Natural Sciences According to Karl Popper, science should be based on the method of conjecture and refutations, and scientists should try to falsify hypotheses rather than verify them

TaK – Natural Sciences Truth tests: Correspondence Statements scientists make must correspond to what can be observed in the world Coherence Observations and measurements should be consistent with each other and the explanations they give about phenomena should also be consistent with each other Pragmatic We accept certain assumptions without empirical proof – because they happen to work. For example, we assume that nature is regular and understandable; we assume that the laws of physics are applicable all across the physical universe.

TaK – Natural Sciences Knowledge Time Smooth progress

TaK – Natural Sciences or New explanations replace old through falsifying? New explanations coexist with old? Which? Why? Scientific Progress….

TaK – Natural Sciences Paradigm* Shift Thomas Kuhn: A scientific revolution happens when scientists become unhappy with the prevailing paradigm. If their ideas triumph, the new paradigm will replace the old…. * An overarching theory shared by the community of scientists which is used to make sense of some aspect of reality ie. Newtonian Mechanics, Evolutionary Biology, Atomic Theory etc

TaK – Natural Sciences Time Normal Science Revolution Normal Science Revolution Knowledge

TaK – Natural Sciences Knowledge Time Knowledge Time Knowledge Time Other models of progress: Knowledge

TaK – Natural Sciences “You observed me speeding? Are you familiar with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?”

TaK – Natural Sciences Knowledge Creator(s) Works of Knowledge (math proof, research paper, novel etc) Knowledge Community (peers, critics, general public) Within context of the natural world Natural world influences what is studied, and how it is studied and the creation of knowledge has an effect on the natural world Within social context Societies influence how knowledge is created and judged and knowledge affects societies and cultures

TaK – Natural Sciences Key Points: The success of the natural sciences has led some people to see them as the most important form of knowledge The traditional picture of the scientific method has science consisting of five key steps: observation, hypothesis, experiment, law, theory Since scientific laws are based on a limited number of observations, we can never be sure they are true According to Karl Popper, science should be based on the method of conjecture and refutations, and scientists should try to falsify hypotheses rather than verify them (However, a hypothesis can no more be conclusively falsified than it can be conclusively verified) Although scientific beliefs change over time, it could be argued that each new theory is closer to the truth than the previous one

Natural Sciences Perception How far do expectations influence observations? Perception How far do expectations influence observations? Language What role do metaphors play in science? Language What role do metaphors play in science? Ethics Are scientists morally responsible for how their discoveries are used? Ethics Are scientists morally responsible for how their discoveries are used? Arts What role does imagination play in the sciences? Arts What role does imagination play in the sciences? History Should scientists know about the history of their subjects? History Should scientists know about the history of their subjects? Human Sciences How do the human sciences differ from the natural sciences? Human Sciences How do the human sciences differ from the natural sciences? Emotion What does biology tell us about emotion? Emotion What does biology tell us about emotion? Religion How similar is faith in science to religious faith? Religion How similar is faith in science to religious faith? TaK – Natural Sciences