Science, Technology, Scientific Method,
and Scientific Attitudes
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Since human history, people have been developing interconnected and validated ideas about
the world physical, biological, physiological, and social.
Those ideas influence successive generations to achieve an increasingly comprehensive and
reliable understanding of the human species and the complexity of the environment.
This understanding is a result of systematic ways of observing, thinking, experimenting, and
validating.
These ways are a fundamental aspect of the nature of science
They also reflect how science tends to differ from other modes of knowing.
Scientific endeavor becomes successful if it unites science, mathematics, and technology.
Although each of these human enterprises has a character and history of its own, each is
dependent on and is reinforced by the others.
Understanding how science works allows us to easily distinguish science from non-science.
To understand biological evolution, or any other science, it is essential to begin with the
nature of science.
What makes Science?
Some of the characteristics that make science:
1. Science seeks to explain the natural world and its explanations are tested by gathering
evidence through our sense and extension of our senses:
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The basis of any scientific understanding is information derived from observations of
nature. Real materials and observations are the ultimate tests of any concept.
Evidence is the basic stuff
of science.
Dreams, apparitions and hallucinations, may seem real but they do not arise from our
senses, are not even extensions of our senses, and so are not within the scope of
science.
2. Scientific ideas are developed through reasoning:
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Inferences are logical conclusions based on observable facts; a conclusion reached on
the basis of evidence and reasoning.
Much of what we know from scientific study is based on inferences from data.
For example, no person has ever seen the inside of an atom, yet we know, by
inference, what is there.
3. Scientific claims are based on testing explanations against observations of natural world.
Those that fail the test are rejected:
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Scientific explanations are evaluated based on evidences generated through
repeated experiments, observations, and rejection or modification of
explanations.
4. Conclusion of science are reliable, although tentative:
• Science is always a work in progress and its conclusions are always tentative in
the sense that all ideas are open to scrutiny and are modified as new evidence
appears.
5. Science is not democratic.
• Scientific ideas are subject to scrutiny from near and far, and are accepted or
rejected on the basis of evidence.
6. Science is non-dogmatic.
• Explanations and conclusions are accepted only to the degree that they are well
founded and continue to stand up to scrutiny.
• Dogmatic: characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly
or positively as if they were facts.
7. Science cannot make moral and aesthetic decision.
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Scientist can infer the relationship of flowering plants from their anatomy, DNA,
and fossils, but they cannot scientifically assert that a sampaguita is prettier than
an orchid.
Scientist make moral and aesthetic judgments and choices, but such decisions are
obviously not part of science.
8. Science is not always a direct ascent toward the truth.
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In some cases, scientific ideas that dominated a particular time may later be
recognized as inaccurate or incomplete.
Spontaneous Generation: the outmoded theory that living organisms, rather than
coming from the reproduction of their species, arise from non-living things. Ex.
Dust  Flea
9. Science corrects itself.
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Sometimes it takes years, decades, or even centuries to make the correction of
errors of the past.
Those past “truths” are often challenged by improved understanding attributed to
new technology or changing perspectives.
TECHNOLOGY
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"science of craft“:
o from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and
o λογία, -logia, “the application of scientific knowledge”
for practical purposes, especially for industry and the good life for man.
It is the collection of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in
the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such
as scientific investigation.
The simplest form of technology is the development and use of basic tools.
The prehistoric discovery of how to control fire and the later Neolithic
Revolution increased the available sources of food, and the invention of the
wheel helped humans to travel in and control their environment.
Developments in historic times, including the printing press, the telephone, and
the Internet, have lessened physical barriers to communication and allowed
humans to interact freely on a global scale.
Technology has helped develop more advanced economies (including today's
global economy) and has allowed the rise of a leisure class.
However, many technological processes produce unwanted by-products known as
pollution and deplete natural resources to the detriment of Earth's environment.
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Innovations have always influenced the values of a society and raised new
questions of the ethics of technology.
Examples include the rise of the notion of efficiency in terms of human
productivity, and the challenges of bioethics.
Non-Science and Pseudoscience
Non-science:
may be defined as an area of knowledge which does not meet the criteria of
science like consistency, observability, testability, and predictability, among
others.
• Non- science topic areas may be very logical, but simply do not fall within the
realm of science.
• These would include any belief system, e.g., religious beliefs, philosophy,
personal opinions or attitudes, a sense of aesthetics, or ethics.
Pseudoscience:
• is a claim, belief, or practice that which is presented is scientific, but in the
ultimate analysis does not adhere to a valid scientific methodology, lacks
supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or lacks scientific
status.
• often characterized by the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an
over-reliance on confirmation rather than on rigorous attempts at refutation, or a
lack of openness to rationally develop theories.
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Scientific Method and Inquiry
a. Fundamentally, the various scientific disciplines rely on evidence, use of
hypotheses and theories, and use of logic.
b. However, scientists differ greatly from one another in what phenomena they
investigate and in how they go about their work.
c. They exchange techniques, information, and concepts.
d. They share understandings about what constitutes an investigation that is
scientifically valid.
e. Scientists anchor their frame of mind on curiosity.
f. They usually accept an explanation based on evidence or proof.
g. To prove their point, they usually consider what is aptly called scientific method
which consists of the following steps:
1. stating the problem;
2. forming a hypothesis;
3. testing the hypothesis;
4. recording and analyzing data;
5. forming a conclusion; and
6. replicating the work.
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When a hypothesis is tested and confirmed again and again and is unlikely to be
disproved by future tests, it may become a theory.
Scientifically, the word theory means time-tested concept that makes useful and
dependable prediction about the natural world.
Not all the time an explanation should be always done through an experiment like
what the scientific method would assert.
There are instances when common sense and logic best explain how an event or
phenomenon came about.