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

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

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

5. The natural world is immense; current background knowledge is vast.
TaK – Natural Sciences
The natural world is immense; current background knowledge is vast.
Where does a contemporary research group even begin?

6. In Subject groups find examples of: A scientific hypothesis
TaK – Natural Sciences
In Subject groups find examples of:
A scientific hypothesis
A scientific theory
A scientific model
A scientific law

7. What makes a hypothesis a good hypothesis?
TaK – Natural Sciences
What makes a hypothesis a good hypothesis?

8. Can we talk about ‘scientific truths*’ or should we talk about
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

10. TaK – Natural Sciences
1543
Where do we begin?

11. TaK – Natural Sciences
Ptolemy 90 – c.168 AD
Copernicus

12. Key to the discoveries and developments of science have been:
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

22. 600 Light years from us

23. Ursa Major
NGC 3310

24. NGC 3310 46 million light years away from us
Speed of light: 300,000 kms/second
NGC 3310
26,000 light years in diameter
There are more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe

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

26. 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

27. 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

28. The facts are coming! The facts are coming!
TaK – Natural Sciences
The facts are coming! The facts are coming!

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

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

31. How do we study the Sciences?
TaK – Natural Sciences
How do we study the Sciences?

32. The scientific method Put in order: Test with experiments
TaK – Natural Sciences
The scientific method
Put in order:
Test with experiments
Ask questions
Think! Try again
Draw conclusion
Report results
Background research
Observation
Construct hypothesis
Analyze results

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

34. ….. from Results you may be able to
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.

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

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

37. What makes a hypothesis
TaK – Natural Sciences
The scientific method
What makes a hypothesis
a good hypothesis?

38. 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.”

39. TaK – Natural Sciences

40. Problems with Induction:
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?

41. According to Karl Popper,
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

42. Truth tests: Correspondence Coherence Pragmatic
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.

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

44. TaK – Natural Sciences
Smooth progress
Knowledge
Time

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

46. Paradigm* Shift Thomas Kuhn:
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

47. Knowledge Time TaK – Natural Sciences Revolution Normal Science

48. 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

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

51. Knowledge Creation Diagram
TaK – Natural Sciences
Knowledge Creation Diagram
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
Works of
Knowledge
(math proof,
research paper,
novel etc)
Knowledge
Creator(s)
Knowledge
Community
(peers, critics,
general public)
Within social context
Societies influence how knowledge is created and judged and knowledge affects societies and cultures

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

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

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

55. TaK – Natural Sciences

56. TaK – Natural Sciences
Who is a Scientist?

57. Who is a Scientist? By temperament … some scientists are collectors
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

58. Who is a Scientist? In the broadest sense, we all can be…
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

59. “The progress of science is strewn, like an ancient desert trail,
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