1. Engineering, Science, and You
Lesson 2
Engineering, Science, and You

2. Overview
Nowadays we are living in a scientific age or experimental age?
Why an enginner uses the scientific approach?
Why You should understand research design?

3. Why Engineer Uses the Scientific Approach
“Why are people the way they are?”
Scientists still embrace the scientific method because it is a useful tool for getting accurate answers to important questions.
The Characteristics of Science
The Characteristics of Engineering

4. The Characteristics of Science
The eight strengths of the scientific approach are that it:
1. finds general rules
scientists are optimistic that they can find general rules that will allow them to see connections between seemingly disconnected events and thus better understand the world
the goal of science is not to make the world unnecessarily complicated and thus more confusing, but instead to make the world more understandable by finding simple, elegant rules that describe, predict, and explain behavior

5. The Characteristics of Science
The eight strengths of the scientific approach are that it:
1. finds general rules
scientists are optimistic that they can find general rules that will allow them to see connections between seemingly disconnected events and thus better understand the world
the goal of science is not to make the world unnecessarily complicated and thus more confusing, but instead to make the world more understandable by finding simple, elegant rules that describe, predict, and explain behavior
2. collects objective evidence
3. makes testable statements
4. adopts a skeptical, questioning attitude about all claims
5. remains open-minded about new claims
6. is creative
7. is public
8. is productive

6. Objective Albert Einstein
“Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.”
Scientists believe in objective facts because human history shows that we can’t always accept people’s subjective opinions.
Albert Einstein

7. Testable
Skeptical
Objective
Open
Public
Productive

8. Test-Testabilty
“You don’t do interesting research if you don’t take risks. Period. If you prove the obvious, that’s not interesting research.”
Although we would argue that unsupported opinions, like unsupported speculations, are of limited value, we are not saying that scientists don’t have opinions. Like everyone else, they do. However, unlike almost everyone else, scientists willingly and humbly put those opinions to the test and stand ready to renounce their previous views if proved wrong

9. Test - 2
“Admitting error clears the score and proves you wiser than before.”
At one level, you probably appreciate scientists’ willingness to consider that they might be wrong. You may wish other people—especially certain arrogant ones—asked themselves the “Could I be wrong?” question more often.
At another level, you might ask, “Why should I risk finding out that a cherished opinion is wrong?” Scientists have at least two reasons. First, a major goal of science is to identify myths, superstitions, and false beliefs. To determine what is common sense and what is common nonsense, we have to put popular beliefs to the test. Second, one of science’s major strengths is that its methods allow scientists to learn from mistakes—and to learn from a mistake, you first must know that you made a mistake.

10. Test -3
“The scientific method requires that you struggle exhaustively to disprove, or falsify, your best ideas. You actually try, again and again, to find the possible flaw in your hypothesis. We scientists are rather accustomed to falling flat on our faces!”
A scientist does not need to start with intuitively accurate insights into how the world works. You just need to learn when your initial insights are wrong by making testable statements: statements that may possibly be shown to be wrong. The goal in making a testable statement is not to make a statement that will be wrong, but rather to put yourself in a position so that if you are wrong, you admit it and learn from your mistake.

11. Test-4 “Our team will win, lose, or tie its next game,”
It is so flexible that it can fit any result. Because his untestable prediction can fit any result, his belief can never be changed, refined, or corrected by the discovery of new facts. Because untestable statements do not allow scientists to test their beliefs, scientists try to avoid untestable statements.
Scientists’ efforts to avoid being fooled by untestable statements lead scientists to be skeptical of (a) vague statements and (b) after-the-fact explanations.

12. Unstable statement
Vague statements are as useless as they are untestable. Vague statements, because they contain loopholes that make them
untestable, are often the province of “sucker bets” and of pseudosciences, such as palmistry and astrology.

13. Statements
One way that scientists avoid making vague statements is by defining their concepts in precise and objective terms. Instead of talking only in terms of vague, invisible, and hard-to-pin-down abstractions.
When researchers state their predictions in such clear, concrete, and objective terms, they can objectively determine whether the evidence supports their predictions.
While scientists use operational definitions to help them make testable predictions, quacks avoid making testable predictions by avoiding operational definition.

14. Skeptical
Scientists are not just skeptical about after-the-fact explanations. Scientists, are so skeptical that they want evidence before they believe even the most “obvious” of statements. As Carl Sagan (1993) noted, scientists have the courage to question conventional wisdom. The scientists respond to claims by saying things like “Show me,” “Let me see,” “Let’s take a look,” and “Can you verify that?”
The scientists do not accept notions merely because an authority says it’s true or because everyone is sure that it is true. Instead, scientists accept only those beliefs that are supported by objective evidence.
Even after scientists have objective evidence for a belief, they continue to be skeptical. They realize that having circumstantial evidence in support of a belief is not the same as having proof that the belief is correct.

15. Skeptical questions
What is the evidence against this belief? Scientists realize that if they looked only at the cases that support a belief, they could find plenty of evidence to confirm their pet hypotheses.
„What other explanations are there for the evidence that seems to support this belief?” Consequently, scientists are experts at considering alternative explanations for events.
Being skeptical also means realizing that “convincing proof” may merely be the result of a coincidence.

16. Open-minded
The good scientists are also open-minded. The same respect for the evidence that allows them to be skeptical of popular claims that are not supported by the evidence allows them to be open to unpopular claims that are supported by the evidence.
Consequently, scientists will not automatically dismiss new ideas as nonsense, not even ideas that seem to run counter to existing knowledge, such as telepathy. The willingness to consider odd ideas has led scientists to important discoveries, such as the finding that certain jungle plants have uses.

17. Creative
Einstein said, “The most important thing to do is to not stop questioning.„
To test unconventional ideas and to formulate new ideas to be tested, scientists must be creative. We should point out, however, that you don’t need to be “naturally creative” to think in a creative way

18. Share findings
“Scientists are not dependent on the ideas of a single person, but on the combined wisdom of thousands.” (Rutherford)
These reports allow other scientists to replicate—repeat—the original study.
Advantages:
biases and errors can be spotted—and corrected
Researchers can build on each other’s work. Nobody has to solve a problem alone. If a scientist doesn’t have the resources to solve an entire puzzle, the scientist can work on filling in one of the last remaining pieces of the puzzle that others have almost completed

19. Productive
„A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation. „
Fortunately, scientists usually do share their findings and build on each other’s work. As a result, theories are frequently revised, refined, or replaced, and, in some fields of science, knowledge doubles every 5 to 10 years.

20. The Characteristics of an Engineer
General Rules
Objective
Testable
Skeptical
Open-Minded
Creative
Public
Productive

21. The Importance of Science to Engineering
Without science, there is no engineer sciencist
Without science, the engineer would be built on unsupported opinion rather than on objective facts

22. Few important things Finds general rules: Helps us understand behavior
Collects objective evidence: Tests whether beliefs and theories are consistent with objective evidence.
Makes verifiable statements: Makes specific, testable predictions that are sometimes found to be wrong (rewarding someone for doing a task will always increase their enjoyment of that task). That is, we use evidence to correct wrong beliefs.
Skeptical: Demands evidence. Challenges common sense and traditional notions.
Open-minded: Entertains virtually any hypothesis.
Creative Measures concepts, generates hypotheses, and devises studies that rule out alternative explanations for findings.
Public: Allows scientists to check and build on each other’s work through research published in journals.
Productive: Increases psychological knowledge at a dramatic rate.

23. Why You Should Understand Research Design
To Understand Engineering (BSc, MSc, special course)
The classic answer is that you can’t have an in-depth understanding of engineering - the science of behavior— unless you understand its methods.

24. Why You Should Understand Research Design
1. To Understand Engineering (BSc, MSc, special course)
2. To Read Research
When research addresses problems that interest you, you will want to take advantage of that research. To do so, you must be able to read and interpret scientific research reports. You can’t rely on reading about research in textbooks, magazines, or newspapers.
Knowing research terminology and logic allows you to bypass secondhand accounts of research, thus allowing you to read the original source and come to your own conclusions.

25. Why You Should Understand Research Design
1. To Understand Engineering (BSc, MSc, special course)
2. To Read Research
3. To Evaluate Research
If you understand research, you will not only be able to get recent, firsthand information, but you will also be in a position to evaluate that information You will also find that you need your critical abilities because (a) even studies published in good journals may be flawed, (b) poorly designed studies are, in many areas, much more common than well-designed ones (Begley, 2007; Kolata, 2003), and (c) you will often encounter conflicting research findings.

26. Why You Should Understand Research Design
1. To Understand Engineering (BSc, MSc, special course)
2. To Read Research
3. To Evaluate Research
4. To Protect Yourself from Quacks
Perhaps more important than encountering conflicting research findings is the problem of identifying phony experts. We do not mean that all experts are giving bad advice. We mean that it’s hard to tell what is good advice and what is not. Research suggests that, at least in some fields, the more well-known and the more quoted an expert is, the less accurate that expert’s predictions are (Tetlock, 2005). Although the truth is out there, so are a lot of lies. Science, nonscience, pseudoscience, and common nonsense exist side by side on the shelves of the engineering section in the bookstore, on talk shows, on the Internet, and on televised newsmagazines. We live in the information age, but we also live in the misinformation age. As a result, without some training in research design, it is hard to distinguish which “expert” information is helpful and which is potentially harmfull

27. Why You Should Understand Research Design
1. To Understand Engineering (BSc, MSc, special course)
2. To Read Research
3. To Evaluate Research
4. To Protect Yourself from Quacks
5. To Be a Better Thinker
The way you think now will be the foundation for thinking scientifically: As Einstein said, “The whole of science is nothing more than the refinement of everyday thinking.”

28. Why You Should Understand Research Design
1. To Understand Engineering (BSc, MSc, special course)
2. To Read Research
3. To Evaluate Research
4. To Protect Yourself from Quacks
5. To Be a Better Thinker
6. To Be “Scientifically Literate”
if we are going to make an informed decision about global warming or a host of other problems, we need to know how to interpret scientific research.

29. Why You Should Understand Research Design
1. To Understand Engineering (BSc, MSc, special course)
2. To Read Research
3. To Evaluate Research
4. To Protect Yourself from Quacks
5. To Be a Better Thinker
6. To Be “Scientifically Literate”
7. To Increase Your Marketability
You will be more skeptical of bad evidence and more able to benefit from good evidence.

30. Why You Should Understand Research Design
1. To Understand Engineering (BSc, MSc, special course)
2. To Read Research
3. To Evaluate Research
4. To Protect Yourself from Quacks
5. To Be a Better Thinker
6. To Be “Scientifically Literate”
7. To Increase Your Marketability
8. To Do Your Own Research
“We need to sharpen our vision of what is possible to that most fascinating of all enterprises: the unearthing, the discovery, the pursuit of significant new knowledge”

31. Concluding Remarks
Understanding research design will help you distinguish between science, pseudoscience, nonscience, and nonsense: a skill that will help you be a better citizen and consumer.
Understanding research design will also help you evaluate research articles: a skill that will help you in your professional life.
Understanding research design will help you get the tools you need to get answers to your own questions: to generate research ideas, manipulate and measure variables, collect data that are both objective and valid, choose the right design for particular research question, treat participants ethically, interpret results, and communicate findings.