Science Surprises. Exploring the Nature of Science. Edition 3.7: 14 July By Lawrence Flammer. Published by ENSIweb, LLC at Smashwords

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Science Surprises. Exploring the Nature of Science. Edition 3.7: 14 July By Lawrence Flammer. Published by ENSIweb, LLC at Smashwords"

Sandra Holt
5 years ago
Views:

1 Science Surprises Exploring the Nature of Science Edition 3.7: 14 July 2014 By Lawrence Flammer Published by ENSIweb, LLC at Smashwords Copyright 2014 Lawrence Flammer ISBN Science Surprises by Lawrence Flammer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

2 Preface Students: As you use this booklet, keep in mind that there are several interactive lessons (or lab activities) that your teacher will introduce and guide you through. In fact, you probably have already done a few of those lessons before you got this textbook. This booklet should help you to better understand, remember and use the concepts you experienced in those lessons, and the additional lessons to come. In the Appendices, you will find a number of extensions to the main chapters. Some will take you into greater depth and detail. Others will provide more examples. And still others are additional activities that your teacher may assign. Or, you might just want to do them if they intrigue you, if you finished your assigned work, and you have the time. There were many more resources used to create this textbook (and the teaching guide) than are found on the Science Surprises References page, and those additional resources can be found in the Teaching Guide References. There were many people who contributed to the Science Surprises unit, including several teachers and their students across the nation who volunteered to field-test the program. Acknowledgement to those people can be found in the teaching guide Teachers: Be sure to read the Note to Teachers in this student textbook. This text supplement is intended to be used by students along with several engaging, interactive and hands-on lessons that are freely downloadable from the internet, and which you can prepare and introduce to your students.

3 Chapter 1. Why Science? What is Science? Why Science in Your Life? What is Science? What Do Scientists Do? What s Next? Self Check A (Questions 1-8) Chapter 2. What Science is Not Questions Science Cannot Answer Answers Science Cannot Use What s Next? Self Check B (Questions 1-9) Chapter 3. Words of Science Scientific Observations Scientific Explanations Problems With Words: Their Use and Misuse What s Next? Self Check C (Questions 1-11) Chapter 4. Quality of Science Is it Good Science or is it Poor Science? What Makes Poor Quality Science? How Can We Tell if it s Good Science or Not? What s Next? Self Check D (Questions 1-10) Contents Chapter 5. Pseudoscience: A Major Misuse Some Examples of Pseudoscience Comparison of Pseudoscience and Science Pseudoscience in the Science Classroom The Last Word What s Next? The Future of Science, and Your Place in That Future Self Check E (Questions 1-7) Summary Note to Teachers References Credits for Figures Used (30 Figures) Student Appendices Index (13 items)

Chapter 1. Why Science? What Is Science? You can observe a lot just by watching. Yogi Berra, baseball player From NASA.Gov as bluemarble_apollo17_big.jpg" Figure 1.

4 Chapter 1. Why Science? What Is Science? You can observe a lot just by watching. Yogi Berra, baseball player From NASA.Gov as bluemarble_apollo17_big.jpg" Figure 1.1: Our Earth really is round, like a ball. Of course you know that. But, a long time ago, everyone just assumed that the Earth was flat. Then, around 2,540 years ago (540 BC), a Greek thinker (Pythagoras) suggested that our world might be round, like a ball. But he wasn t a scientist. Why not? Well, he didn t test his idea, that s why. And he didn't provide good, material evidence. Then, about 300 years later (240 BC), a man from Libya (can you say Eratosthenes? ) did more than just think about it. He actually measured some shadows in Egypt and cleverly figured out the actual distance around our globe. He used some shadows and some basic math, and his result was only 16% off the actual distance! This was 2,240 years ago! And it's something you could do. Because of this, he became one of our first scientists. Do you know why? Ever since then, most educated people have agreed that our Earth is spherical. Even Columbus knew that.

You see, our knowledge about how nature works is tentative (or temporary): it can be changed with new information. <http://www.astronoo.com/en/articles/atom.

5 This photo above (Figure 1.1) was taken from space on Apollo 17. Can you see the shading near the edges? This is typical for a photo of a ball. Today, many people have gone into space and have actually seen our world rotating under them. Look at the videos taken by astronauts orbiting around the Earth in the International Space Station. You see, our knowledge about how nature works is tentative (or temporary): it can be changed with new information. < Image credit: GNU Free Documentation License. Figure 1.2: Atomic orbitals for different electron energy levels. Even atomic theory has changed. Haven t you seen pictures of atoms with tiny electrons in paths around a nucleus (Figure 3.4A)? That was an early scientific idea. Later, scientists found evidence that electrons were most likely in a hazy cloud region around the nucleus, and not in fixed orbits (Figure 3.4B). Still later, they found that the electrons were most likely to be in those fuzzy little orbital regions (Figure 1.2, above). Scientific understandings can change, but it s always getting better, and closer to reality!

Modified version of NASA.Gov image: solar-system-210.en.png from http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/ice-dwarf/en/ Figure 1.3: Our Planets Orbit Around the Sun.

6 Modified version of NASA.Gov image: solar-system-210.en.png from Figure 1.3: Our Planets Orbit Around the Sun. This diagram shows all the planets moving in orbital paths around the Sun. (Nothing is to scale here, not the distances nor the sizes. And the planets are never all lined up like this). But the Sun is clearly the center of this system. Long ago, people assumed that the Earth was the center, with Sun and planets going around us (see Figure 1.7). But new evidence did not fit that view, disproving the old idea. Scientific understanding does change with new evidence. Magician And Floating Lady clip art free vector Figure 1.4: No Magic Allowed Here! Of course, you all know that science can only use natural explanations for natural phenomena. It cannot use magical or supernatural forces to explain the natural world. Many people think you can, but there s a very good reason why you can t do that in science. You ll find out what that reason is later in this unit. This is also a key reason why science is so reliable. What can science do? What can science not do? What is science? How does it work? Let s find out. Read the 12 items below. Which ones are true? Which are False? List numbers 1-12 in your notebook, and indicate there if you agree or disagree with each item. 1. Science can only answer certain kinds of questions. 2. Good scientists try to disprove their explanations, not prove them. 3. Scientists can only use natural explanations, never supernatural ones. 4. A scientific theory is a well-supported explanation about the natural world. 5. A hypothesis is not just an educated guess. 6. The main goal of science is to understand nature, not just gather facts. 7. There are many ways to do good science; there is no one scientific method. 8. Scientific knowledge can always change and be replaced by new knowledge. 9. No explanation in science is known with absolute certainty. 10. There are many degrees of uncertainty in scientific knowledge. 11. With science, our knowledge about nature gets more and more accurate. 12. What we know about nature is only a small fraction of what we could know.

7 If you totally agree with all of the above features about science, then you are to be congratulated. And so should your former teachers who taught you about science. Those statements are all true. You might not even need this unit about the nature of science. But you can certainly help many of your fellow students to understand why they re true. Unfortunately, there are many people who would not agree with some of those statements. They include doctors, engineers, lawyers, politicians, even some science teachers! Did you disagree with even a few of those statements? If so, then the fact that they are all true may be your first surprise! This unit was made for you. There s more to science than you may have ever dreamed. With the exciting experiences and discussions this unit provides, your class will discover what science can and cannot do, and why that is. Your class will also get a better idea about how science actually does what it does. And we will all see how valuable science is to each of us, and to our nation. Why Science In Your Life? Why is science so important? Here are four big reasons: 1. Understanding: Science is clearly misunderstood by many people. Some people take advantage of that lack of knowledge by making false claims about science. Or they use science incorrectly. Some do this out of ignorance about science. Others do this on purpose. In either case, it creates false information that can influence your opinions and choices. Knowing what science IS and what it s NOT can help you to recognize when it s being misused so you won t be fooled. A clear understanding of science is important when voting on political candidates and many political issues. It s also important when looking for information about medical, diet or environmental questions. It s helpful for just being a smart consumer. 2. Jobs: Some of you may want a job in a field of science as a scientist or a lab tech. You might even want to be a science teacher! Many non-science jobs also require science training. These include engineering, environmental law, cosmetology, physical therapy, or any health career. In fact, a good understanding of science can help with careers in politics, law, business, or teaching at any level. Also, if you are a critical thinker and good problem-solver, you ll probably get better jobs in any field.

8 3. Critical and Skeptical Thinking: This means, as adults, you don t just accept any information as it comes to you. You ask questions. You look for clues about its accuracy. You ask Where does this come from? How reliable is that source? What s the evidence for that? You insist that new information be based on facts and critical studies. You check it by comparing with other views from other sources. This is essential if it s about a medical question or some other very important decision. Critical and skeptical thinking is a basic part of science. Those skills are also useful for having a more successful life. You will less likely be fooled by political promises, tricky ads, false medical claims, or shady business deals. Your successes in life will often depend on your ability to use those skills. In fact, the success of our nation depends on how well we all understand and practice those science skills of critical and skeptical thinking. 4. Helping to Make a Better World: It would take many pages to list all the ways science has helped our planet and our way of life. But here s a short list: Have you heard of smallpox, diphtheria, rheumatic fever, or bubonic plague? Ever hear of polio, measles, or scurvy? How about tuberculosis, death from childbirth, or infant death? If you haven t heard of even a few of those conditions, you can thank scientists for that. Those ten afflictions once destroyed millions of people every year. Some even changed history. In developed countries, now, those conditions are rarely seen anymore. They re not all totally gone yet, but they re not the curse they were decades ago. Why? Because of vaccinations, antibiotics, nutrition, and public health measures. All of this has happened because of medical science (Rifkin 2013). Now we have new medications, plastics, fibers and renewable biofuels. Scientists discovered how to genetically modify organisms to produce these useful products. And engineers have designed ways to mass-produce them. For example, engineered bacteria or yeasts produce all the human insulin used today by people with diabetes. This is much better than the insulin we once got from pigs. Many diabetics are allergic to pig insulin! Would you like to do something with your life to help people, and to make a better world? It would be hard to find a better way to do this than by doing science. Or maybe you d prefer to use the discoveries of science by being a medical doctor or an engineer. This country, and this world, needs good scientists, engineers and doctors. And you could be one, if you wanted to. What Is Science? What Do Scientists Do? These may seem like silly questions, but you d be amazed at the strange ideas people have about science. Some people distrust science, or don t even like science. But when you look at what they don t like, it s often about false ideas they have about science. Let s see how your ideas match the reality of science. Briefly, science is a powerful and useful tool to understand the natural world. It does this by finding only natural explanations. The goal of science is to understand the natural world. Surprise!

(Photo by the author) Figure 1.5: Curiosity: What s this? Ooh, ooh, I found one, too! Look, it s moving! I wonder what it eats? Do you remember when you found wonder everywhere?

9 (Photo by the author) Figure 1.5: Curiosity: What s this? Ooh, ooh, I found one, too! Look, it s moving! I wonder what it eats? Do you remember when you found wonder everywhere? All of us went through that stage as little children. But for scientists, that wonder and curiosity never stops. Even more, they want to devote their lives to getting reliable answers. They need to understand the universe and everything in it. What do scientists do? The goal of scientists is not trying to gather as many facts as possible. Instead, scientists are driven by ignorance! (Firestein 2012). Ignorance here means lack of knowledge about something. Scientists are mainly trying to replace our ignorance about the natural world with reliable knowledge. Hopefully, that knowledge may be used to help solve the many practical problems that people face, as it often does. To get that reliable knowledge, here s what scientists generally do: 1. Scientists observe nature and ask questions. Scientists are very curious about nature. They ve never lost their childhood curiosity (Figure 1.5). They instinctively wonder how the natural world works and how it came to be the way it is. They are passionate to understand. And they ve learned clever ways to do that. They observe very carefully. They look for clues. They ask specific questions to explore a subject of interest. That starts the scientific ball rolling. 2. They search the literature for the work of others on this question. They do this to see how others have approached the topic. They may also find what questions have not yet been fully answered. They look for and think of possible explanations or answers to each question. This is one of the creative parts of science. 3. They devise ways to test those possible answers one by one. They do this to find what works and what doesn t work. They try to find the best explanation. Designing good tests requires even more creative skills. 4. Now they actually test those possible answers. They gather and analyze the resulting data. If it looks useful, they prepare a report of their work. They make sure that the details of their studies are clear. They expect other scientists to look for errors in the work, or try to duplicate what they did.

10 5. They publish their reports in peer-review professional science journals. They may also present their work at conferences. That way, their work can be widely shared and critically examined by many more scientists. Where s the Method? Surprise! There is no one Scientific Method with steps that must be followed by all scientists. Science can be done many ways. (For more about this, see Appendix SA-1.1). However, all science today is based on certain assumptions and limits. A helpful way to understand how science really works is to combine those assumptions and limits into a short list of rules. We ll call these the Rules of Science. If you re curious about those main assumptions and limits of science, ask your teacher. Rules of Science: Most of our successes in medicine, agriculture, engineering and technology are due to science. Science helps us to understand how the natural world really works. This knowledge is reliable because science follows some basic rules. We will explore those rules in this unit. Some Key Rules of Science Science can only answer questions about the natural world. Scientific answers must be based on observation, not authority. Scientific answers can only use natural forces, never supernatural. Scientific answers must always be testable. Scientific answers can change with new data and new methods. Scientific answers having different lines of evidence are stronger. ===================================== Science as a Way of Knowing: Keep in mind that science is one of several ways of knowing. Think of your brain as a room with many windows to the outside world. Each window is a different way of knowing about that world. When you peer out each window, you find a different way to understand the world. Each way has its own methods, its own rules. For example, we could use the direct observation window, where we just use our senses to learn. We could also use logic, religion, philosophy or science windows to answer questions about the world. If you did the Palpating Pachyderms lesson, you got an idea about sensing the world through the window of touch. Most people use a mix of windows to understand their world. Each of these ways of knowing follows different rules and may give us different kinds of information. This doesn t mean there are different realities. It also doesn t mean that some ways of knowing are wrong. The information we get could just be different parts of that reality. Or they may just be different views of the same reality. Go out in front of your school and look at it while standing, at eye level. Then imagine what it would look like from an airplane. Finally, how would it appear to a gopher on the ground? You will get different impressions, but it s still the same school. You might even want to discuss those different impressions with your class. In any case, science has been clearly shown to be the most useful and reliable way to understand the natural world.

Science as a game: (Photo by author) Figure 1.6: Game Rules? Is this Chessball or Basechess? What rules should be used? Another way to understand science is to see it as a kind of game.

11 Science as a game: (Photo by author) Figure 1.6: Game Rules? Is this Chessball or Basechess? What rules should be used? Another way to understand science is to see it as a kind of game. Different games have different rules. Can you imagine playing chess on a baseball diamond (Figure 1.6)? There would be chaos! For the same reason, it isn t fair to play the game of science using some of the rules of philosophy or religion. The rules for those games do not work for science, and vice versa. For example, any effort to use religious beliefs for scientific explanations would break the rules of science. And, using scientific findings to explain religious beliefs could break the rules of that religion. Remember this: the amazing successes of science are because scientists have followed the rules of science. Science is Not Always Logical: You might be surprised that science isn t always common-sense or logical. This may seem strange but what we see isn t always real! It may seem like we live on a flat Earth. The Sun seems to move across the sky every day, then rise again in the east. For that reason, it was once thought that our Earth was the center of the universe. This is the Earth-Centered model shown in Figure 1.7A, with our Moon, other planets and the Sun moving in orbits around us.

Courtesy of Hubblesite.org (OPO Copyright <copyright@stsci.edu>) Figure 1.7A: Earth-Centered Model vs Figure 1.

12 Courtesy of Hubblesite.org (OPO Copyright Figure 1.7A: Earth-Centered Model vs Figure 1.7B: Sun-Centered Model But science has shown us, with lots of evidene, that our Earth is actually a big ball that spins one turn every 24 hours. It also takes a year for Earth to move around the Sun! You probably learned this in a science class, but it isn t obvious. This is the Sun-Centered model shown in Figure 1.7B. We live in a world of many natural illusions. But science helps us to cut through those illusions. It gives us a much more reliable picture of the natural world than our senses or logic alone could ever do. Thought question: Our Earth is about 24,000 miles around at the equator. If you were standing near our equator, about how fast (in miles per hour) would you be travelling around the Earth's axis? Does your answer sound logical? Applied Sciences and Natural Sciences Compared: Engineers and medical doctors (MDs) are thought by many to be doing science. But engineering and medicine are actually applied sciences, not natural sciences (See Appendix SA-5.3: Our Search For Understanding). Most engineers and MDs are not research scientists. Surprise! They are not seeking answers to mysteries about the natural world. This is what real scientists do. But they do solve problems, and their methods are in some ways similar to those of science. Engineers apply the findings of science to design structures, like buildings, dams, roads or electronic circuits. Medical doctors apply the findings of science to treat medical and health problems. As you learn about the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), keep in mind how they re alike, but also how they re different. Of course, some engineers and MDs are also scientists. They are helping to answer questions about the natural world that clearly have practical applications. Real Science usually called the natural sciences are mainly in physics, chemistry, and biology. They include related fields like astronomy, geology, ecology and climatology. The research in these fields is mostly just trying to learn more about a part of the natural world. This unit, using Science Surprises, is mainly about the natural sciences.

13 There are also the so-called social sciences. They include psychology, sociology and political science. These all deal with patterns of human behavior, and this involves very complex issues. It s hard to use math to describe them. Also, results in those fields are easily affected by the opinions of those doing the studies. That is something that we try to avoid in the natural sciences. What s Next? Now you have an idea what science is, why it s so amazingly powerful, and why it s so important to our society and every citizen. But what is not science? What can science not do? What are the limits of science? Answers to those questions are important to know. They will sharpen your understanding of what science is. You will explore them in the next chapter. Self Check A: Without looking back, answer these 9 items briefly in your notebook. Then re-read the section, and make appropriate changes or additions (*TPS = be ready to discuss in class): 1. List three ways that science can help you. 2. Write a brief definition of science (from memory!) 3. What is a key driving force of science? 4. What are five things that scientists generally DO? 5. Why do we not use The Scientific Method here?* 6. Why is science not always logical?* 7. List three of the rules of science. 8. In what way is science like a game?* 9. Why are most engineers and medical doctors not scientists?* 10. List three ideas or words in this chapter that were hard to understand. 11. List three things that were surprises (new) to you. RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS

Unit One: Part One: The Science of Biology. 5/16/2013 Averett

Unit One: Part One: The Science of Biology 1 Science Science uses evidence and an organized approach to study the natural world Science attempts to explain how and why things happen. Scientists study the