1. How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?
What even is a Science?
How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

2. What even is a Science?
What were the two ways of defining the development of science we looked at last week?
Who came up with them?
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

3. What even is a Science?
Today we’re going to look at a couple of different things:
a) Whether science has a structure. That is, whether science has a defined way that it works or not
b) What issues there are inherent in using science as an AOK
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

4. What even is a Science?
At the end of the last lesson we looked at the way some people think scientific research advanced and what that involved
However, there is an assumption here that there is a defined thing called science, and it works according to a set of principles
As we will discuss today, not everyone is happy with that assumption
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

5. What even is a Science?
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

6. What even is a Science? Consider that graph you saw last lesson
Imagine if science did look like that, what would you say the causes for the bumps were?
Draw out a timeline for physics, and note out what you think the biggest discoveries and theories in it are
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

7. What even is a Science? This guy thinks that this isn’t a coincidence
This is Thomas Kuhn, who was a Historian of Science, and he said that these changes in theory weren’t just an artefact of how science works, they were central to it
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

8. What even is a Science?
This comic is about maths, but it applies to the way we do Science as well
Kuhn said that, essentially, each science is different and works in its own little area. That is in terms of natural physics everyone was Aristotelean, then Galilean, then Newtonian, then Einsteinian, and now Boseian or whatever.
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

9. What even is a Science? This idea Kuhn called PARADIGM SHIFTS
The idea is that every so often, someone just ups and changes the rules in a science
These separate sciences are incommensurable, that is they don’t work together and can’t be compared
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

10. What even is a Science?
Whilst Popper or Ayer would call this progress, we discover that Newton was wrong and embrace Einstein, Kuhn is not so sure
Kuhn thinks it’s more like each individual playing their own science ‘game’. So if you are playing chess, then I come in, knock the chessboard over, and throw my monopoly set down, the fact that we are playing according to new rules isn’t an ADVANCEMENT, it’s just a change
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

11. What even is a Science?
Give me three examples of what Kuhn would call ‘Paradigm Shifts’
Do you think that these involve a genuine advancement of knowledge, or rather simply a mad hatter esque ‘change places’?
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

12. What even is a Science?
Try to think of one rule that all scientists follow, that can be said for all of science
Think of it like this, is there anything someone can be doing that – if they are doing it – makes that thing science?
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

13. What even is a Science? This guy thinks not.
This is Paul Feyerabend, who simply said ‘there are no rules in science’
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

14. What even is a Science?
Feyerabend says, take a Physicist and a Geologist. Is it fair to say that they are behaving the same and using the same ‘scientific method’? It would seem as if there are important differences
This is not only true for different sciences but for different scientists within the same discipline, so two evolutionary biologists might be focussed on completely different things with completely different approaches
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

15. What even is a Science?
Feyerabend called this position EPISTEMOLOGICAL ANARCHISM
This is basically the idea that there is no ONE scientific method, and there is no way that all scientists act
This means that there is essentially no way of delineating science and non-science. It doesn’t make sense to call the creation museum in Kentucky pseudo-science because there is no such thing as science in the first place
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

16. What even is a Science?
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?
Verificationism: A J Ayer
Falsificationism: Karl Popper
Paradigm Shift: Thomas Kuhn
Epistemological Anarchy: P Feyerabend

17. What even is a Science? Where do you put yourself on this chart?
Do you think it’s fair to say that science is a progressive entity?
Put where you see yourself in the compass thing for the moment, and write a short couple of sentences on your thoughts so far
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

18. What even is a Science?
One problem we have is that science in and of itself doesn’t self-regulate
That is, the production of knowledge in science doesn’t have any ethical or value boundaries
Why might this be a problem? Well we’re about to see
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

19. What even is a Science? Group 1 – The Tuskegee Experiment
Group 2 – Nazi Experimentation in WW2
Group 3 – The 1969 Monkey Drug Trials
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?

20. What even is a Science?
KLQ: How are the Natural Sciences unique as an Area of Knowledge?