science 110 introduction to scientific thought spring

8/14/2019 Science 110 Introduction to Scientific Thought Spring

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Science

110Introduction to Scientific

ThoughtSpring

2010


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My heart leaps up when I behold

A Rainbow in the sky:So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!The Child is father of the man;

And I could wish my days to beBound each to each by natural piety

by William Wordsworth


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Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out the crannies,

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson


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Introduction to Scientific

Thought


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Introduction to Scientific

Thought The Scientific Method

Discuss Syllabus

Course Project-Original Scientific Experiment Teams

Email Addresses

Test Your Scientific Literacy The Shroud of Turin

Nature of Evidence and Good Science

Suicide of Reason


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COURSE OBJECTIVES:

1. Acquiring critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking is deciding rationally what to or what not to believe

2. Comprehending how scientists discover basic laws of nature.

3. Obtaining knowledge of the history and philosophy of science. The Philosophy of Science is concerned with science - specifically, how science operates, what the goals ofscience should be, what relationship science should have with the rest of society, the differences between science

and other activities, etc. Everything that happens in science has some relationship with the Philosophy of Science.

4. Gaining ability to distinguish real science from pseudo-sciences.

Pseudoscience begins with a hypothesis then looks only for items which appear to support it.Generally speaking, the aim of pseudoscience is to rationalize strongly held beliefs, rather than to investigate or to

test alternative possibilities. Pseudoscience specializes in jumping to "congenial conclusions," grinding ideological

axes, appealing to preconceived ideas and to widespread misunderstandings.

5. Adding skepticism to your intellectual kit.


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The Scientific Method

Science employs the scientific method. No, there's no such

method: Doing science is not like baking a cake. Science

can be proved on the basis of observable data. No, general

theories about the natural world can't be proved at all. Our

theories make claims that go beyond the finite amount of

data that we've collected. There's no way such extrapolationsfrom the evidence can be proved to be correct. Science can

be disproved, or falsified, on the basis of observable data.

No, for it's always possible to protect a theory from an

apparently confuting observation. Theories are never tested

in isolation but only in conjunction with many other extra-theoretical assumptions (about the equipment being used,

about ambient conditions, about experimenter error, etc.).

It's always possible to lay the blame for the confutation at

the door of one of these assumptions, thereby leaving one's

theory in the clear.


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JABBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking-Glass

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought --

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.


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COURSE TOPICS

The nature of Evidence. What is the relationship between observation and hypothesis?

History of Science

What is science? Is there such a thing as science?

The Art of Observation Optical Illusions, Modern Art and Gestalt Formation

Philosophical foundations of scienceGood Science, Bad Science and Pseudo-Science

Great Ideas in Science

Alternative medicine, medical quackery, and hoaxes

Scientific literacy

The Precautionary Principle

Religion and Science

Ethics and science- Tolerance and intoleranceObservation art and illusions

Science and art

Technology - applied science

Limitation of Science

Serendipity in Science


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Required Texts:The Scientists, John Gribbin, Random House, New York, 2003

The Borderline of Science, Michael Shermer, Oxford University Press,

New York, 2002

You are responsible to read the text on your own. Once a week there is a

quiz based on the text and lectures. Lectures will not only supplement

textural material covered, but also discuss topic not found in the text.

CLASS SCHEDULE


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CLASS SCHEDULE

Lecture Reading Assignment Homework Assignment Date: week of

Discuss Syllabus and Science Project.Introductory LectureShroud of TurinBowen Massage

Copernicuspp 1 to 32Brahe / Keplerpp. 33 to 67

My heart Leaps UpBathroom mirror experimentShroud of TurinIs Bowen good medicine?

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First day of class

The universe and the Standard Model Galileo/Descartespp 68 to 148

Garbage bag experimentRainbows, clouds, sunsets

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Quiz 1

History of scienceIndependent, dependent, and controlvariables. Pendulum.

Newton pp 149 to 241 Newton s methodo logyHow does a Greenhouse work andhow explains global warmingHot & Cold Experiment

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Quiz 2

History of Science Chemistry/ Periodic tablepp 241 to 318

Describe how a calendar works,Solar time, GMT, sidereal time, lunartime

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Exam 1

Philosophical foundations of science Sky in a bottleLogical fallacies

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Quiz 4

What is science? Induction/deductionconnection between observation andTheoryThe origin life -What is man?

Geology/Darwin pp 319 to 358 Debate: Creative Design vs. EvolutionNumber seriesOrigin of bipedalism

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Quiz 5

Philosophers of Science-Scientific Method

M b ius StripRed and GreenDiffraction

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Quiz 6

Observation art and illusions

Gestalt Formation

Atoms/ molecules

Pp 359 to 399

Chromatography of leaf or black

marking penShape of cumulus cloudsColor of sunrise or sunset

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Exam 2

Science and art Is the horizon curved? 3/20Quiz 7

Bad science:1.Polywater2.Cold Fusion

Electromagnetism pp 400 to 441 1. Invent a code2. Who is Leonard Horowitz?Thermite explosion in class

3/27Exam 2

Scientific LiteracyApplied scienceLimitation of Science

Prove the Earth is not flat.Steel is denser than water, yet steelships float: explain

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Pseudoscience& alternative medicine,& medical quackery, hoaxes, ESP

Plate tectonics pp 442 to 486 Pro/con:Is Wegener a pseudo-scientist? 4/17

Quiz 8

Pseudoscience&Logical deceptionsUrban Legends

Match JetSlime

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SkepticismEthics and science

Planck, Bohr, Einsteinpp 487 to 528

Pro/Con discussion ethical questions:abortion; cloning; euthanasia; animalrightsNI3 explosive

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Quiz 9

The Precautionary PrincipleLimitation of ScienceSerendipity

What are yo u taking ? Find whats inthat stuff.

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Science Project

Religion and ScienceAnthropic PrincipleTolerance and intolerance

Life pp 529 to 572 5/15Last day of Class

Science Project Due 5/22


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Test YourScientific Literacy1. Scientists usually expect an experiment to turn out a certain way.

2. Science only produces tentative conclusions that can change.

3. Science has one uniform way of conducting research called the scientific method.

4. Scientific theories are explanations and not facts.

5. When being scientific one must have faith only in what is justified by empirical evidence.

6. Science is just about the facts, not human interpretations of them.

7. To be scientific one must conduct experiments.

8. Scientific theories only change when new information becomes available.

9. Scientists manipulate their experiments to produce particular results.

10. Science proves facts true in a way that is definitive and final.

11. An experiment can prove a theory true.

12. Science is partly based on beliefs, assumptions, and the non-observable.13. Imagination and creativity are used in all stages of scientific investigations.

14. Scientific theories are just ideas about how something works.

15. A scientific law is a theory that has been extensively and thoroughly confirmed.

16. Scientists education, background, opinions, disciplinary focus, and basic guiding assumptions

and philosophies influence their perception and interpretation of the available data.

17. A scientific law will not change because it has been proven true.

18. An accepted scientific theory is an hypothesis that has been confirmed by considerable evidence

and has endured all attempts to disprove it.

19. A scientific law describes relationships among observable phenomena but does not explain

them.

20. Science relies on deduction (x entails y) more than induction (x implies y).

21. Scientists invent explanations, models or theoretical entities.

22. Scientists construct theories to guide further research.

23. Scientists accept the existence of theoretical entities that have never been directly observed.

24. Scientific laws are absolute or certain.


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Psychic for Pets

Part medium, part mediator,she began doing readingsthat gave voice to the needs

of the Weber family dogs.Kindly dont throw us in thecar without telling us wherewere going, an irritatedgolden retriever namedPalomino requested through

Ms. Agro. Skye is such a bigbaby, vented a pup namedTrue about a rival.

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are needed to see this picture.

Ch D ti ti i K k ' W ld


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In Brooklyn, a Psychic for the

Famous, or Rather, for Their PetsAnimals dont reallyhave the ability to telltheir people whatsgoing on, said Ms. Agro,

a young-looking 42(which she attributes todiligent managing ofher energy, just asothers attribute that

good fortune to smartmanaging of theirdiets). This is a way forthem to have someoneadvocate for them.

QuickTime and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Choose a Destination in Koko's World


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Can You Identify This

Individual? Was worshipped as a Good Shepherd, the Way, the Truth and the Light,

the Redeemer, the Savior, and the Messiah.

Was believed to have been born of a virgin.

Birthday celebrated yearly on Dec. 25.

Was visited by shepherds and by Magi.

Traveled through the countryside, taught, and performed miracles with his12 disciples.

He cast out devils, returned sight to the blind, healed the lame, etc.

Symbols associated with him were a Lion and a Lamb.

Held a last supper, was killed, buried in a rock tomb.

He rose again after three days later he later ascended into heaven.

Rituals include a Eucharist and six other sacraments.


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Shroud of Turin an Illustrates of the Conflict Between Belief and Skepticism

The Shroud of Turin is a centuries old linen cloth that bears the image of acrucified man. A man that millions believe to be Jesus of Nazareth. Is itreally the cloth that wrapped his crucified body, or is it simply a medieval

forgery, a hoax perpetrated by some clever artist? Modern science hascompleted hundreds of thousands of hours of detailed study and intenseresearch on the Shroud. It is, in fact, the single most studied artifact inhuman history, and we know more about it today than we ever have before.And yet, the controversy still rages.


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Face Negative and Positive

Images


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Front View Shroud of Turin


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Carbon-14 in Living Things

The carbon-14 atoms that cosmic rays create combine with

oxygen to form carbon dioxide, which plants absorb naturally

and incorporate into plant fibers by photosynthesis. Animals and

people eat plants and take in carbon-14 as well. The ratio of

normal carbon (carbon-12) to carbon-14 in the air and in all

living things at any given time is nearly constant. Maybe one in

a trillion carbon atoms are carbon-14. The carbon-14 atoms are

always decaying, but they are being replaced by new carbon-14

atoms at a constant rate. At this moment, your body has a

certain percentage of carbon-14 atoms in it, and all living plantsand animals have the same percentage.


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Turin Shroud confirmed as

a fake"A medieval technique helped us to make a Shroud," Science & Vie (Science and Life) said

in its July issue. The Shroud is claimed by its defenders to be the cloth in which the body of

Jesus Christ was wrapped after his crucifixion.

It bears the faint image of a blood-covered man with holes in his hand and wounds in his

body and head, the apparent result of being crucified, stabbed by a Roman spear and

forced to wear a crown of thorns.

In 1988, scientists carried out carbon-14 dating of the delicate linen cloth and concluded

that the material was made some time between 1260 and 1390. Their study prompted the

then archbishop of Turin, where the Shroud is stored, to admit that the garment was a

hoax. But the debate sharply revived in January this year.

Drawing on a method previously used by skeptics to attack authenticity claims about the

Shroud, Science & Vie got an artist to do a bas-relief -- a sculpture that stands out from the

surrounding background -- of a Christ-like face.


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a fake A scientist then laid out a damp linen sheet over the bas-relief and let it dry, so that the thin cloth was moulded onto the face.

Using cotton wool, he then carefully dabbed ferric oxide, mixed with gelatine, onto the cloth to make blood-like marks. Whenthe cloth was turned inside-out, the reversed marks resulted in the famous image of the crucified Christ.

Gelatine, an animal by-product rich in collagen, was frequently used by Middle Age painters as a fixative to bind pigments tocanvas or wood.

The imprinted image turned out to be wash-resistant, impervious to temperatures of 250 C (482 F) and was undamaged byexposure to a range of harsh chemicals, including bisulphite which, without the help of the gelatine, would normally havedegraded ferric oxide to the compound ferrous oxide.

The experiments, said Science & Vie, answer several claims made by the pro-Shroud camp, which says the marks could nothave been painted onto the cloth.

For one thing, the Shroud's defenders argue, photographic negatives and scanners show that the image could only havederived from a three-dimensional object, given the width of the face, the prominent cheekbones and nose.


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a fake In addition, they say, there are no signs of any brush marks. And, they argue, no pigments could

have endured centuries of exposure to heat, light and smoke.

For Jacques di Costanzo, of Marseille University Hospital, southern France, who carried out theexperiments, the mediaeval forger must have also used a bas-relief, a sculpture or cadaver toget the 3-D imprint.

The faker used a cloth rather than a brush to make the marks, and used gelatin to keep the rustyblood-like images permanently fixed and bright for selling in the booming market for religiousrelics.

To test his hypothesis, di Costanzo used ferric oxide, but no gelatin, to make other imprints, butthe marks all disappeared when the cloth was washed or exposed to the test chemicals.

He also daubed the bas-relief with an ammoniac compound designed to represent human sweatand also with cream of aloe, a plant that was used as an embalming aid by Jews at the time ofChrist.


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a fake He then placed the cloth over it for 36 hours -- the approximate time that Christ

was buried before rising again -- but this time, there was not a single mark on it.

"It's obviously easier to make a fake shroud than a real one," Science & Vie

report dryly.

The first documented evidence of the Shroud dates back to 1357, when it

surfaced at a church at Lirey, near the eastern French town of Troyes. In 1390,

Pope Clement VII declared that it was not the true shroud but could be used as

a representation of it, provided the faithful be told that it was not genuine.


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Turin shroud 'older thanthought'

Tests in 1988 concluded the cloth was a medieval"hoax

The Shroud of Turin is much older than suggested by

radiocarbon dating carried out in the 1980s, according to

a new study in a peer-reviewed journal. A researchpaper published in Thermochimica Acta suggests theshroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old.The

author dismisses 1988 carbon-14 dating tests whichconcluded that the linen sheet was a medieval fake.


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Homework Problem

Does data supports the age of the shroud at2000 years old?

Have you stopped believing in Santa Claus?What were your reasons?

Or do you still believe? What are your

reasons?


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Issues

What is evidence?

What is the relationship between evidence

and hypothesis?

How does one verify a hypothesis?

Does inductive verification work?

How does one know anything?


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Proper Science

Consistent

Parsimonious

Retrogressive

Progressive Testability

Avoidance of supernal explanations

Tentative

Changeable Falsifiable


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MARKS OF PSEUDOSCIENCE


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Has religion impeded or aided the progress

of science?

Does religion encourage the adoption ofideas without reason or evidence?


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Sam Harris: Science Must Destroy Religion

80% of Americans believe that Jesus rose literally to heaven.

22% are sure that he will return within the next 50 years.

Another 22% think he probably will return in the next 50 years. 28% of Americans who believe in evolution.

Despite the ecumenical efforts of many well-intentioned people,

these irreconcilable religious commitments still inspire an appalling amount of human conflict.

Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapableof criticizing ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive.

It has also obliged us to lie to ourselves repeatedly and at the highest levels about the

compatibility between religious faith and scientific rationality.


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The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma; the maintenance of religious

dogma always comes at the expense of science.

It is time we conceded a basic fact of human discourse: either a person has good reasons for what he

believes, or he does not. When a person has good reasons, his beliefs contribute to our growing

understanding of the world. We need not distinguish between "hard" and "soft" science here, or

between science and other evidence-based disciplines like history. There happen to be very good

reasons to believe that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Consequently, theidea that the Egyptians actually did it lacks credibility.

Every sane human being recognizes that to rely merely upon "faith" to decide specific questions of

historical fact would be both idiotic and grotesque that is, until the conversation turns to the origin

of books like the bible and the Koran, to the resurrection of Jesus, to Muhammad's conversation with

the angel Gabriel, or to any of the other hallowed travesties that still crowd the altar of human

ignorance.


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read wordsSam Harris Mon Jan 2,11:25 AM ET

Science, in the broadest sense, includes all reasonable claims to knowledge about ourselves and the world. If

there were good reasons to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that Muhammad flew to heaven on a

winged horse, these beliefs would necessarily form part of our rational description of the universe. Faith is

nothing more than the license that religious people give one another to believe such propositions when

reasons fail. The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to

dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments, and a passionate unwillingness to do so.

The distinction could not be more obvious, or more consequential, and yet it is everywhere elided, even in the

ivory tower.

Religion is fast growing incompatible with the emergence of a global, civil society. Religious faith faith that

there is a God who cares what name he is called, that one of our books is infallible, that Jesus is coming back toearth to judge the living and the dead, that Muslim martyrs go straight to Paradise, etc. is on the wrong side of

an escalating war of ideas. The difference between science and religion is the difference between a

genuine openness to fruits of human inquiry in the 21st century, and a premature closure to such

inquiry as a matter of principle. I believe that the antagonism between reason and faith will only grow more

pervasive and intractable in the coming years. Iron Age beliefs about God, the soul, sin, free will, etc.

continue to impede medical research and distort public policy. The possibility that we could elect a U.S.

President who takes biblical prophesy seriously is real and terrifying; the likelihood that we will one day confront

Islamists armed with nuclear or biological weapons is also terrifying, and it is increasing by the day. We are

doing very little, at the level of our intellectual discourse, to prevent such possibilities.


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Sam Harris Mon Jan 2,11:25 AM ET

In the spirit of religious tolerance, most scientists are keeping silent when they should be blasting the hideous

fantasies of a prior age with all the facts at their disposal.

To win this war of ideas, scientists and other rational people will need to find new ways of talking about ethics

and spiritual experience. The distinction between science and religion is not a matter of excluding our ethical

intuitions and non-ordinary states of consciousness from our conversation about the world; it is a matter of our

being rigorous about what is reasonable to conclude on their basis. We must find ways of meeting our

emotional needs that do not require the abject embrace of the preposterous. We must learn to invoke

the power of ritual and to mark those transitions in every human life that demand profundity birth,

marriage, death, etc. without lying to ourselves about the nature of reality.

I am hopeful that the necessary transformation in our thinking will come about as our scientific understanding of

ourselves matures. When we find reliable ways to make human beings more loving, less fearful, and

genuinely enraptured by the fact of our appearance in the cosmos, we will have no need for divisive

religious myths. Only then will the practice of raising our children to believe that they are Christian, Jewish,

Muslim, or Hindu be broadly recognized as the ludicrous obscenity that it is. And only then will we stand a

chance of healing the deepest and most dangerous fractures in our world.


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Science

Systematized

observations and tests of

proposed explanationsFull-time specialists

Explanations accepted

only with tests


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Religion

A formalized system

with detailed beliefs,

full time specialists,

social arbiter,

explanationsaccepted without test


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A Private Universe

Why are there

seasons?

Why is this important

for this class?


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Students build on their understanding that they

developed over the years before they walked into a

classroom.

Students do not discard old beliefs due to new.

Students learn and adjust their worldviews on a daily

basis.

Students provided with information that is believable

and useful are likely to keep it in mind and to continue

to use it when learning other information.


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Research indicates that preconceptions need to

be examined and worked into the educational

process

Several problems may occur when prior

knowledge and new knowledge clash:

Amnesia: the students forget the material

or even forget learning it

Fantasia: the students misremember what

they have learned in such a way as to make

it compatible with prior knowledge with

which it originally conflicted

Inertia: the students are unable to

synthesize or apply the facts they have

learned


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The amazing thing about the clashing of new and old ideas

is that people can compartmentalize information, learn it

(usually memorize it) for the short term, and then snap back

to their previous beliefs.

To break this cycle requires examining original beliefs in

light of the newer learnt material.


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Magic

A "black box"

Part-time specialists

difficult to controlAccepts explanations without

question

How do we respond?


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Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The argument that language defines the way a person

behaves and thinks has existed since the early 1900's

when Edward Sapir first identified the concept. He

believed that language and the thoughts that we have

are somehow interwoven, and that all people areequally being effected by the confines of their

language. In short, he made all people out to be

mental prisoners; unable to think freely because ofthe restrictions of their vocabularies.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/pqrst/sapir_edward.htmlhttp://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/pqrst/sapir_edward.html


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"Received" wisdom

Ways of Knowing

Simple parental training

Oral tradition

Written word

Faith


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We face the ultimate brute question:

How you answer questions depends on your needs


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How you answer questions depends on your needs.

Something is explained when it is the result of a general law

Example? What goes up, must come down results from the law of gravity

Something is explained when it is an example of a commonly understoodprinciple

Example? Why is this water going downhill? Because water always flowsdownhill.

Something is explained when identifying the factors that connect two

or more events.Example? The tree and house came down at the same time because a storm

came along with very high wind and hit both of them.


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But how do we know what we know?

Epistemology

the nature of knowledge, its

presuppositions andfoundations, and its extent

and validity

the way that knowledge

claims are justified

H d l d l i h h k ?


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How do people deal with the unknown?

The big problems?

We are conscious of our mortality.

We are aware of the limitations of ourknowledgeor should be.


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We propose relationships between the knownand the unknown

by using only terms and concepts of theknown.

An Unknown Man

cast glass with pate de verre inclusions

Linda [email protected]
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Ways of Knowing

Perception

The senses
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lucidnotion.com/photos/icons/senses.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.lucidnotion.com/senses.html&h=164&w=150&sz=8&tbnid=a9DrrBAs-tQJ:&tbnh=93&tbnw=85&hl=en&start=2&prev=/images?q=senses&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=


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Truth vs. Validity

Truthis a matter of

belief or faith.

Validityis a matter ofhow well an argument

meets the

requirements of thesystem of logic within

which it operates.


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For scientists truth is an

unattainable goal, and infact, is dangerous.

However, scientistsconstantly question validity.


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In this class well be doing science!

science 110 introduction to scientific thought spring

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