TOK: Natural Science

Fatema Shaban &Omaymah Tieby

What is Science?Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge” or “knowing”) is the effort to discover and increase human understanding of how the physical world works” (Wikipedia)

“Any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation” (Encyclopedia Britannica)

Are these definitions confusing?!

Want a simpler definition?

“Science is the knowledge gained from using observations and experiments to describe the world around us”

ScienceKnowledge about the natural world

Types of Science

ScientistsScience is a human activity which involves many different activities including thinking, observing and communicating. Reasoning, emotion, sense, perception, and language are also needed.

Modern LifeWithout Science, what is left?

Is all science progress?

Do you know how your hard drive works?

Can you really explain evolution?

What is relativity?

Does it matter if we understand it?

400 years ago, Galileo set up an experiment to test the hypothesis that objects accelerate when they fall. Experimentation was commonly employed by the Arabs, but their methods were looked down on by the Europeans, who followed the Church’s dictum that conclusions could only be reached by discussions and logic, following Aristotle.

Galileo’s reliance based on knowledge led Europe into the Enlightenment, and established the scientific method, which is still regarded as the only satisfactory approach when it comes to the acquisition of knowledge about the natural world.

The scientific ‘method’

Observation is one of the most important tools for a

scientist

(Source: Science Quest 1 Student workbook)

What did you observe?

What was the time?

What was the date?

Describe the person at the from of the queue:a) Was it a man or woman?b) Was he/she tall or short?c) Was he/she fat or thin?d) What was he/she doing with their hands?

(Source: Science Quest 1 Student Workbook)

HypothesisHow the scientific Method should work

Order the boxes to tell a story

ExperimentAn experiment is a methodical trail and error procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying or establishing the validity of a hypothesis.

Science and pseudo-science

We have decided that science is a method more than it is a body of knowledge, which may prompt us to see it as a way of knowing just as much as an area of knowledge. Anything that adheres to the rules of procedure for the scientific method can be called ‘scientific’. Anything that does not, falls into another category, such as pseudo-science or superstition.

The Flat Earth Society

Paranormal investigations

Ufology

Phrenology

Crystal healing

Creation science

But before we pour scorn on those believe in pseudo-sciences, consider that some things that we accept now have started off as pseudo-sciences. For example:

Meteorites

Continental drift

To put this in context, let’s say that I am the first scientist to notice that water always boils at the same temperature, 100˚C. Using induction, I suggest the hypothesis that water always boils at 100˚C. I then set out to test this hypothesis, and boil water over a period of years, and always arriving at the same conclusion. I submit my findings to a respected journal, my peers check my findings, and my hypothesis is published. No one refutes my idea, and my hypothesis duly becomes a theory. Over time, the theory then becomes a law.

We cannot prove anything with 100% certainty in the natural world, so the purpose of science is not to show that things are true, rather that things are false. If a hypothesis stands up to testing over a long period of time, it is given the term theory. This means that we are not so much interested in theories that are true as we are theories that are not false

If I say that the earth was created by God, this clearly isn’t a scientific theory, because there is no way of testing this idea, and proving it to be false (or true)

The scientist/philosopher who advocated this idea was Karl Popper. In the 1960s he challenged what was then the accepted view that science worked along observationalist -inductionist lines – or, reaching conclusions about hypotheses on the basis of previous results, rather than the potential falsifiability of the idea. According to Popper, nothing that cannot be falsified can be called a scientific hypothesis/theory.

Some people have criticized Popper’s ideas, as it is difficult to show that some theories are false – for example, evolution. Indeed, Popper said of this: "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program." However, the idea of falsification being an integral part of a scientific theory is a very useful way of testing the validity of most scientific hypotheses, and separating the ones that have little claim to scientific legitimacy

Falsification scientific knowledge “consists in the

search for truth” but it “ is not the search for certainty… all human knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain.” (wikipedia)

Is there a place for faith in the

natural sciences?Is the clash between science and religion inevitable? Or do they deal with different questions?

Are there limits to what can be understood through

science?

To what extent is scientific knowledge affected by the social context in which it is

written?