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

2. TaK – Natural Sciences What are the Natural Sciences? What differentiates them from other Areas of Knowledge?

3. TaK – Natural Sciences What methodologies are used in the natural sciences?

4. TaK – Natural Sciences The Black Box A structure for which your description constitutes the only available truth In groups: What can we know about the internal structure of the box?

5. TaK – Natural Sciences The Black Box What we know can be different from what actually is

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

7. Joseph Wright – An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump 1768

8. TaK – Natural Sciences Eratosthenes

9. TaK – Natural Sciences 1473 - 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus

10. TaK – Natural Sciences Ptolemy 90 – c.168 ADCopernicus

11. TaK – Natural Sciences Galileo Galilei 1564-1642 “…perhaps more than any other single person, was Responsible for the birth of modern science” Stephen Hawking

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

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

14. 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

15. 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

16. TaK – Natural Sciences The facts are coming!

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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?

20. TaK – Natural Sciences Who is a Scientist?

21. 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

22. 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

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

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

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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.

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

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

31. TaK – Natural Sciences The scientific method Problems with testing Hypotheses: What makes a hypothesis a good hypothesis?

32. 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.”

34. TaK – Natural Sciences

35. Problems with Induction: Reasoning from the observed, to the unobserved How many observations should be made before we jump to a generalisation?

36. 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

37. 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.

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

39. TaK – Natural Sciences Knowledge Time Smooth progress

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

41. 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…. * Thought pattern shared by a community

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

43. 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

44. ToK Prescribed Titles 2010 “What separates science from all other human activities is its belief in the provisional nature of all conclusions” (Michael Shermer, www.edge.org). Critically evaluate this way of distinguishing the sciences from other areas of knowledge. Keywords? Knowledge Issues?

45. TaK – Natural Sciences Some 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

46. 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

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