The natural sciences consist of biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology and earth science as a whole. They are often considered to be one of the most objective and reliable areas of knowledge. This is not necessarily true however, and one only has to look at the scientific method to see why.
The scientific method:
· Observation: At this stage, scientists observe, and collect information, looking for patterns. This is a stage where subjectivity will have a role, since as human beings, we do not observe everything, we only observe those elements that seem important, and so we could miss something. Also, by the very act of observing, we invariably disturb the natural state of things. Also, this means that you are suing induction, which could lead to generalizations.
· Hypothesis: This is a prediction about what will happen. It must be stated so that it is falsifiable. This does of course lead to the scientists having expectations about what will happen, so they might be less likely to accept results that go against this.
· Experiment: An experiment is designed, that must be controllable, with only one factor changed at a time, measurable, it must have appropriate variables, and repeatable by other people.
· Law: The results of the experiment, especially if they agree with the hypothesis, reveal a new scientific law. Here too inductive reasoning is employed since scientists draw conclusions about “all” from a limited number of samples and trials.
· Theory: This unifies several laws, to come up with a principle, which needs more research and investigation. Here the chaos theory reminds us that when we make predictions, we are limited to our current knowledge.
The scientific method depends on falsification. Karl Popper first presented this idea in 1934. According to the principle of “falsification” scientific laws should be shown to be true by attempts at proving them wrong, rather than by verification. This is looking at science as something that tries to describe some parts of reality, solve the inaccuracies of any previous laws and to explain why some things act the way they do. Induction plays a role here, since, until proven wrong, we must assume that the laws work. Therefore, they are true in terms of pragmatic truth. The longer a theory has not been found to be false, the more certain we are that it is true. Einstein put it this way: “Truth is what stands the test of time.” The issue is how do you know what when an observation goes against the hypothesis, and when it is an experimental error. My results for my Biology labs often goes against my hypothesis, and the theory that we have been taught, and almost every time I consider the fault to be in the experiment.
Science evolves in paradigm shifts according to Thomas Kuhn, challenging Popper’s ideas about falsification. He believes that over time as a paradigm starts to seem increasingly false to scientists, as they bring up problems with it, but before that revolution, scientists pretty much accept the current paradigm, this is moment of normal science, which problems with the paradigm are being solved. When the paradigm has been put into question, and then eventually replaced there is a paradigm shift, a revolution.
What I found interesting is realizing how the scientific method is flawed, and how susceptible it is to human errors and assumptions. Science is generally considered as “reliable”, and the laws are accepted as truth, but the fact of the matter is that they could not be. They are only true until shown to be false. In the past people have believed things that we considered to be true, but have turned out not to be true at all. The most classic example is the earth being flat, which we now know to be false, it is round.
This is useful to consider in science, when doing experiments for example. If the results are not what are expected, do no discard them immediately, but use imagination to see if there is another explanations than that the results are faulty. Also, it is important not to consider all of the laws as absolute truth, because there is not such thing. While believing in the laws, it is good to remain open minded if something contradicts them.
“What role does imagination play in the sciences?”
Imagination plays a vital role. Scientists are always wondering why something happens, coming up with topics for experimentation. It takes imagination to begin to question why flower petals have colour. Then it takes imagination to devise an experiment to test this that is fair, only manipulating one variable. Then finally it takes imagination to make sense of the data, and to understand it in a broader perspective, to understand its implications. In this sense imagination is the driving force of science, it is what develops the laws and theories, as it is crucial in testing, as well as making sense of the observations.
As an example, in biology we are going to test how heat loss works and design an experiment to test hoe a certain factor affects it. Obviously we cannot have a live organism in the lab, so firstly we needed to come up with a substitute that would behave similarly. This requires imagination. The teacher suggested that we simply fill up test tubes with 37co water. Next comes the problem of what variable to manipulate, and how to do it, which also requires imagination. You could for instance test how surface area affects heat loss by having different sized test tubes, though the problem is that since you need several different variables, there are not enough different test tube sizes. You could also tests the effect of wind, which is easier, you can take a fan and place it at different distances away from the test tube. This shows that there is a lot of imagination involved in science even at a high school level. Imagine how much imagination Einstein or Newton needed.
