ILOILO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY MODULE 1

GE 7 SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY LESSON 1 THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

Understanding Science
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/

The Many facets of Science

What is Science?

The word "science" probably brings to mind many different pictures: a fat textbook,
white lab coats and microscopes, an astronomer peering through a telescope, a
naturalist in the rainforest, Einstein's equations scribbled on a chalkboard, the launch of
the space shuttle, bubbling beakers …. All of those images reflect some aspect of
science, but none of these provide a full picture because science has so many facets:

 Science is both a body of knowledge and a process.

In school, science may sometimes seem like a collection of isolated and static
facts listed in a textbook, but that's only a small part of the story. Just as
importantly, science is also a process of discovery that allows us to link isolated
facts into coherent and comprehensive understandings of the natural world.

 Science is an exciting global human endeavor.

Science is a way of discovering what's in the universe and how those things
work today, how they worked in the past, and how they are likely to work in the
future. Scientists are motivated by the thrill of seeing or figuring out something
that no one has done before. Besides scientists, people all over the world
participate in the process of science

 Science is useful.
The knowledge generated by science is powerful and reliable. It can be used
to develop new technologies, treat diseases and deal with many other sorts of
problems.

 Science is an ongoing process.

Science is continually refining and expanding our knowledge of the universe, and
as it does, it leads to new questions for future investigation. Science will never be
"finished."

A Science Checklist

So what, exactly, is science? Well, Science turns out to be difficult to define

precisely. (Philosophers have been arguing about it for decades!) The problem is that
the term "science" applies to a remarkably broad set of human endeavours, from
developing lasers to analyzing the factors that affect human decision-making.

This checklist provides a guide for what sorts of activities are encompassed by
science, but since the boundaries of science are not clearly defined, the list should not
be interpreted as all-or-nothing. Some of these characteristics are particularly important
to science (e.g., all of science must ultimately rely on evidence), but others are less
central. For example, some perfectly scientific investigations may run into a dead end
and not lead to ongoing research. Use this checklist as a reminder of the usual features
of science. If something doesn't meet most of these characteristics, it shouldn't be
treated as science.

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GE 7 SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY LESSON 1 THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

 Science asks questions about the natural world

Science studies the natural world. This includes the components of the
physical universe around us like atoms, plants, ecosystems, people,
societies and galaxies, as well as the natural forces at work on
those things. In contrast, science cannot study supernatural forces and
explanations. For example, the idea that a supernatural
afterlife exists is not a part of science since this afterlife operates
outside the rules that govern the natural world.

Science can investigate all sorts of questions:

 When did the oldest rocks on earth form?

 Through what chemical reactions do fungi get energy from the

nutrients they absorb?

 What causes Jupiter's red spot?

 How does smog move through the atmosphere?

Very few questions are off-limits in science — but the sorts of answers
science can provide are limited. Science can only answer in terms of
natural phenomena and natural processes. When we ask ourselves
questions like, What is the meaning of life? and Does the soul
exist? We generally expect answers that are outside of the natural
world — and hence, outside of science.

 Science aims to explain and understand

Science as a collective institution aims to produce more and more

accurate natural explanations of how the natural world works, what its components
are, and how the world got to be the way it is now. The main goal of Science is to
build knowledge and understanding, regardless of its potential applications . For
example, investigating the chemical reactions that an organic compound
undergoes in order to learn about its structure.

However, increasingly, scientific research is undertaken with the explicit

goal of solving a problem or developing a technology, and along the path to that
goal, new knowledge and explanations are constructed. For example, a chemist
might try to produce an antimalarial drug synthetically and in the process, discover
new methods of forming bonds that can be applied to making other chemicals.
Either way (so-called "pure" or "applied" research), science aims to increase our
understanding of how the natural world works.

The knowledge that is built by science is always open to question and

revision. No scientific idea is ever once-and-for-all "proved." Why not? Well, science
is constantly seeking new evidence, which could reveal problems with our current
understandings. Ideas that we fully accept today may be rejected or modified in light
of new evidence discovered tomorrow. For example, up until 1938, palaeontologists
accepted the idea that coelacanths (an ancient fish) went extinct at the time that
they last appear in the fossil record — about 80 million years ago. But that year, a
live coelacanth was discovered off the coast of South Africa, causing scientists to
revise their ideas and begin to investigate how this animal survives in the deep sea.
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GE 7 SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY LESSON 1 THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

Despite the fact that they are subject to change, scientific ideas are reliable.
The ideas that have gained scientific acceptance have done so because they are
supported by many lines of evidence. These scientific explanations continually
generate expectations that hold true, allowing us to figure out how entities in the
natural world are likely to behave (e.g., how likely it is that a child will inherit a
particular genetic disease) and how we can harness that understanding to solve
problems (e.g., how electricity, wire, glass, and various compounds can be
fashioned into a working light bulb). For example, scientific understandings of
motion and gases allow us to build airplanes that reliably get us from one airport to
the next. Though the knowledge used to design airplanes is technically provisional,
time and time again, that knowledge has allowed us to produce airplanes that fly.
We have good reason to trust scientific ideas: they work!

 Science works with testable ideas

Only testable ideas are within the purview of science. For an idea to be
testable, it must logically generate specific expectations — in other words, a set of
observations that we could expect to make if the idea were true and a set of
observations that would be inconsistent with the idea and lead you to believe that it
is not true. For example, consider the idea that a sparrow's song is genetically
encoded and is unaffected by the environment in which it is raised, in comparison to
the idea that a sparrow learns the song it hears as a baby. Logical reasoning about
this example leads to a specific set of expectations. If the sparrow's song were
indeed genetically encoded, we would expect that a sparrow raised in the nest of a
different species would grow up to sing a sparrow song like any other member of its
own species. But if, instead, the sparrow's song were learned as a chick, raising a
sparrow in the nest of another species should produce a sparrow that sings a non-
sparrow song. Because they generate different expected observations, these ideas
are testable. A scientific idea may require a lot of reasoning to work out an
appropriate test, may be difficult to test, may require the development of new
technological tools to test, or may require one to make independently testable
assumptions to test — but to be scientific, an idea must be testable, somehow,
someway.
If an explanation is equally compatible with all possible observations, then it
is not testable and hence, not within the reach of science. This is frequently the case
with ideas about supernatural entities. For example, consider the idea that an all-
powerful supernatural being controls our actions. Is there anything we could do to
test that idea? No. Because this supernatural being is all-powerful, anything we
observe could be chalked up to the whim of that being. Or not. The point is that we
can't use the tools of science to gather any information about whether or not this
being exists — so such an idea is outside the realm of science.

 Science relies on evidence

Ultimately, scientific ideas must not only be testable, but must actually be
tested — preferably with many different lines of evidence by many different people.
This characteristic is at the heart of all science. Scientists actively seek evidence to
test their ideas — even if the test is difficult and means, for example, spending years
working on a single experiment,
traveling to Antarctica to measure carbon dioxide levels in an ice core, or
collecting DNA samples from thousands of volunteers all over the world.
Performing such tests is so important to science because in science, the
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GE 7 SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY LESSON 1 THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

acceptance or rejection of a scientific idea depends upon the evidence relevant

to it — not upon dogma, popular opinion, or tradition. In science, ideas that are
not supported by evidence are ultimately rejected. And ideas that are protected
from testing or are only allowed to be tested by one group with a vested interest
in the outcome are not a part of good science.
 Science is embedded in the scientific community

The progress of science depends on interactions within the scientific

community — that is, the community of people and organizations that generate
scientific ideas, test those ideas, publish scientific journals, organize
conferences, train scientists, distribute research funds, etc. This scientific
community provides the cumulative knowledge base that allows science to build
on itself. It is also responsible for the further testing and scrutiny of ideas and for
performing checks and balances on the work of community members. In addition,
much scientific research is collaborative, with different people bringing their
specialized knowledge to bear on different aspects of the problem. For example,
a 2006 journal article on regional variations in the human genome was the result
of a collaboration between 43 people from the U.K., Japan, the U.S., Canada,
and Spain! Even Charles Darwin, who initially investigated the idea of evolution
through natural selection while living almost as a hermit at his country estate,
kept up a lively correspondence with his peers, sending and receiving numerous
letters dealing with his ideas and the evidence relevant to them.

In rare cases, scientists do actually work in isolation. Gregor Mendel, for

example, figured out the basic principles of genetic inheritance as a secluded
monk with very little scientific interaction. However, even in such cases, research
must ultimately involve the scientific community if that work is to have any impact
on the progress of science. In Mendel's case, the ultimate involvement of the
scientific community through his published work was critical because it allowed
other scientists to evaluate those ideas independently, investigate new lines of
evidence, and develop extensions of his ideas. This community process may be
chaotic and slow, but it is also crucial to the progress of science.

 Scientific ideas lead to ongoing research

Science is an ongoing endeavor. It did not end with the most recent edition
of your college physics textbook and will not end even once we know the answers
to big questions, such as how our 20,000 genes interact to build a human being or
what dark matter is. So long as there are unexplored and unexplained parts of the
natural world, science will continue to investigate them.

Most typically in science, answering one question inspires deeper and

more detailed questions for further research. Similarly, coming up with a fruitful
idea to explain a previously anomalous observation frequently leads to new
expectations and areas of research. So, in a sense, the more we know, the more
we know what we don't yet know. As our knowledge expands, so too does our
awareness of what we don't yet understand.

For example, James Watson and Francis Crick's proposal that DNA takes
the form of a double helix helped answer a burning question in biology about the
chemical structure of DNA. And while it helped answer one question, it also
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UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

generated new expectations (e.g., that DNA is copied via base pairing), raised
many new questions (e.g., how does DNA store information?), and contributed to
whole new fields of research (e.g., genetic engineering). Like Watson and Crick's
work, most scientific research generates new expectations, inspires new
questions, and leads to new discoveries.

 Participants in science behave

scientifically

Science is sometimes misconstrued as an elite endeavor in which one has

to be a member of "the club" in order to be taken seriously. That's a bit
misleading. In fact, science is now open to anyone (regardless of age,
gender, religious commitment, physical ability, ethnicity, country of origin,
political views, nearsightedness, favorite ice cream flavor — whatever!)
and benefits tremendously from the expanding diversity of perspectives
offered by its participants. However, science only works because the
people involved with it behave "scientifically" — that is, behave in ways
that push science forward.

But what exactly does one have to do to behave scientifically? Here is a

scientist's code of conduct:

 Pay attention to what other people have already done.

Scientific knowledge is built cumulatively. If you want to discover

exciting new things, you need to know what people have
already discovered before you. This means that
scientists study their fields extensivaely to understand the
current state of knowledge.

 Expose your ideas to testing.

Strive to describe and perform the tests that might suggest you are
wrong and/or allow others to do so. This may seem like shooting
yourself in the foot but is critical to the progress of science. Science
aims to accurately understand the world, and if ideas are protected
from testing, it's impossible to figure out if they are accurate or
inaccurate!

 Assimilate the evidence.

Evidence is the ultimate arbiter of scientific ideas. Scientists are

not free to ignore evidence. When faced with evidence
contradicting his or her idea, a scientist may suspend judgment on
that idea pending more tests, may revise or reject the idea, or may
consider alternate ways to explain the evidence, but ultimately,
scientific ideas are sustained by evidence and cannot be propped
up if the evidence tears them down.

 Openly communicate ideas and tests to others.

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GE 7 SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY LESSON 1 THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

Communication is important for many reasons. If a scientist keeps

knowledge to her- or himself, others cannot build upon those
ideas, double-check the work, or devise new ways to test the
ideas.

 Play fair: Act with scientific integrity.

Hiding evidence, selectively reporting evidence, and faking data

directly thwart science's main goal — to construct accurate
knowledge about the natural world. Hence, maintaining high
standards of honesty, integrity, and objectivity is critical to science.

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do.

Science is powerful. It has generated the knowledge that allows us to call a friend
halfway around the world with a cell phone, vaccinate a baby against polio, build a
skyscraper, and drive a car. And science helps us answer important questions like
which areas might be hit by a tsunami after an earthquake, how did the hole in the
ozone layer form, how can we protect our crops from pests, and who were our
evolutionary ancestors? With such breadth, the reach of science might seem to be
endless, but it is not. Science has definite limits.

 Science doesn't make moral judgments

When is euthanasia the right thing to do? What universal rights should
humans have? Should other animals have rights? Questions like these are
important, but scientific research will not answer them. Science can help us
learn about terminal illnesses and the history of human and animal rights
— and that knowledge can inform our opinions and decisions. But
ultimately, individual people must make moral judgments. Science helps us
describe how the world is, but it cannot make any judgments about whether
that state of affairs is right, wrong, good, or bad.

 Science doesn't make aesthetic judgments

Science can reveal the frequency of a G-flat and how our eyes relay
information about color to our brains, but science cannot tell us whether a
Beethoven symphony, a Kabuki performance, or a Jackson Pollock
painting is beautiful or dreadful. Individuals make those decisions for
themselves based on their own aesthetic criteria.

 Science doesn't tell you how to use scientific knowledge

Although scientists often care deeply about how their discoveries are used,
science itself doesn't indicate what should be done with scientific
knowledge. Science, for example, can tell you how to recombine DNA in
new ways, but it doesn't specify whether you should use that knowledge to
correct a genetic disease, develop a bruise-resistant apple, or construct a
new bacterium. For almost any important scientific advance, one can
imagine both positive and negative ways that knowledge could be used.
Again, science helps us describe how the world is, and then we have to
decide how to use that knowledge.

 Science doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural explanations

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UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions

may be important, but science won't help you answer them.
Moral judgments, aesthetic judgments, decisions about applications of science, and
conclusions about the supernatural are outside the realm of science, but that doesn't
mean that these realms are unimportant. In fact, domains such as ethics, aesthetics,
and religion fundamentally influence human societies and how those societies interact
with science. Neither are such domains unscholarly. In fact, topics like aesthetics,
morality, and theology are actively studied by philosophers, historians, and other
scholars. However, questions that arise within these domains generally cannot be
resolved by science.

PROCESS OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION

The process of science involves many layers of complexity, but the key points of that
process are straightforward:

 There are many routes into the process — from serendipity (e.g., being hit on the
head by the proverbial apple), to concern over a practical problem (e.g., finding a
new treatment for diabetes), to a technological development (e.g., the launch of a
more advanced telescope) — and scientists often begin an investigation by plain
old poking around: tinkering, brainstorming, trying to make some new
observations, chatting with colleagues about an idea, or doing some reading.

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 Scientific testing is at the heart of the process.

In science, all ideas are tested with evidence from the natural world, which may
take many different forms — from Antarctic ice cores, to particle accelerator
experiments, to detailed descriptions of sedimentary rock layers. You can't move
through the process of science without examining how that evidence reflects on
your ideas about how the world works — even if that means giving up a favorite
hypothesis.

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 The scientific community helps ensure science's accuracy.

Members of the scientific community (i.e., researchers, technicians, educators,

and students, to name a few) play many roles in the process of science, but are
especially important in generating ideas, scrutinizing ideas, and weighing the
evidence for and against them. Through the action of this community, science is
self-correcting. For example, in the 1990s, John Christy and Roy Spencer
reported that temperature measurements taken by satellite, instead of from the
Earth's surface, seemed to indicate that the Earth was cooling, not warming.
However, other researchers soon pointed out that those measurements didn't
correct for the fact that satellites slowly lose altitude as they orbit and that once
these corrections are made, the satellite measurements were much more
consistent with the warming trend observed at the surface. Christy and Spencer
immediately acknowledged the need for that correction.

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ILOILO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY MODULE 1
GE 7 SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY LESSON 1 THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

 The process of science is intertwined with society.

The process of science both influences society (e.g., investigations of X-rays

leading to the development of CT scanners) and is influenced by society (e.g., a
society's concern about the spread of HIV leading to studies of the molecular
interactions within the immune system).

SCIENTIFIC METHOD

• Scientific method is a process of collecting measurable, empirical evidence in an

experiment related to a hypothesis, the results aiming to support or contradict a
theory.

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UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

1. Make an observation.

Qualitative – Using your senses to make an appropriate description of

an object. Qualitative observations are general in
nature.

Quantitative – Observations involving the measurement of quantity

or an amount. Specific in nature.

Example: Plants outside the house are taller than plants inside
the room.

2. Ask question.

Ask questions about the observations and gather information.

Example: How does the amount of sunlight affects plant growth?

3. Propose a hypothesis.

A hypothesis is a potential answer to the question, one that can somehow

be tested. This hypothesis is not necessarily the right explanation. Instead,
it's a possible explanation that we can test to see if it is likely correct, or if
we need to make a new hypothesis.

Example: If plants are given sunlight then they will grow more than
plants without sunlight because plants need sunlight to
grow.

4. Testing hypothesis by conducting an experiment.

 Controlled Experiments are used to test a hypothesis.

 A controlled experiment is an experiment that tests

only one factor at a time by a control group being
compared with an experimental group.

 Variables are not changed in the Control Group.

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UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE

 Control groups allows you to see if a change in a variable creates

an observed outcome by comparing the control group with the
experimental group.

 Control groups are the group of subjects that are NOT given the
test or treatment.

Example: Plants that are not given sunlight.

 Experimental Group:

the group of subjects that are given the test or treatment

(independent variable)

Example: Plants in sunlight

 Variables

factors in an experiment that can be changed.

Examples: water, soil type, plant type, etc.

 Independent - The variable being changed in the experiment

by a scientist.

Example: sunlight (based on our given sample experiment)

 Dependent - The variable that responds to the changed in

independent variable. The variable being measured

Example: plant growth (based on our given sample

experiment)

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 Constants/Controlled Variables: things that are kept the

same between the experimental and control groups.

Examples: amount of water, pot size, plant type, amount of

soil.

5. Collect Data

You measure the height of each plant (cm) every week and record the
data in a table.

6. Analyze Data:

This is the data that you have collected. The results of a test may either
support or contradict—oppose—a hypothesis. Results that support a
hypothesis can't conclusively prove that it's correct, but they do mean it's
likely to be correct. On the other hand, if results contradict a hypothesis,
that hypothesis is probably not correct.

7. Draw conclusion.

Scientists decide whether the results of the experiment support a

hypothesis. When the hypothesis is not supported by the tests the
scientist must find another explanation for what they have observed.

Example: Plants that are given sunlight do grow taller than plants
not given sunlight.

8. Communicate the results.

 After getting the conclusion on our question of interest, a report

must be made consisting the results and describing what did we
find, was our hypothesis correct and what are the practical
implications of our results.

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 Results must be communicated in the form of a written paper or

presentation.

 Communication helps other scientists performing the same

experiments to see if the results of your experiment are the same
as their results

beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what
can be studied by science. For many, such questions are matters of
personal faith and spirituality.

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