Chapter 11- Flashcards
1
Q
What is Science?
A
- Science seeks to aquire knowledge and understanding of reality, through the formulation, testing, and evaluation of theories
~ A systematic and careful way of searching for truth
2
Q
Science is NOT
A
- Technology
~ Technology produces things - Ideology
~ Science is not any particular worldview - Scientism
~ Science is not the only way to access truth (though it is an extremely reliable way of acquiring knowledge about the empirical world)
3
Q
The Scientific Method
A
- Identify the problem or pose a question
- Devise a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon or event
- Derive a test implication or prediction: Ask, “if this hypothesis were true, what consequences would follow?”
- Preform the test
- Accept or reject the hypothesis
4
Q
Identify the problem or pose a question
A
- Example
~ What causes X?
~ Why did Y happen?
~ Does aspirin lower the risk of stroke?
~ How do whales navigate over long distances?
~ How did early hominids communicate with each other?
5
Q
Devise a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon or event
A
- The hypothesis guides the research, suggesting what kinds of observations or data would be relevant to the problem at hand
- The creation of hypotheses is guided by the criteria of adequacy
- Consideration of alternative hypotheses (not just flavored ones)
6
Q
Derive a test implication or prediction: Ask, “if this hypothesis were true, what consequences would follow?”
A
- Dis-confirming ~ If H, then C. ~ Not C ~ Therefore, not C - Denying the consequent - Confirming (though not establishing) ~ If H, then C ~ C ~ therefore H - Affirming the consequent ~ "Induction by Confirmation"
7
Q
Preform the test
A
- Usually involves the testing of many consequences of several competing hypotheses
8
Q
Accepting or rejecting the hypothesis
A
- Ideally, one hypothesis remains, with considerable evidence in its favor
- Hypotheses are not conclusively confirmed or confuted
- This doesn’t mean that all hypothesis are equally acceptable
9
Q
Judging Scientific Theories
A
- Testability
- Fruitfulness
- Scope
- Simplicity
- Conservatism
10
Q
Testability
A
- Whether there’s some way to determine if a theory is true or false
- All theories that scientists take seriously are testable
- A theory is testable if it predicts something other than what it was introduced to explain
- If a theory is untestable (if there is no possible procedure for checking its truth), then it is not useful as an explanatory theory
11
Q
Fruitfulness
A
- The number of novel predictions unknown phenomena
- They yield new insights and can open up new areas of research
- More fruitful theories are more likely to be true
12
Q
Scope
A
- The amount of diverse phenomena explained
- A theory that can explain more things is better than a theory that can only explain few things
- The more a theory explains or predicts, the more it extends out understanding
13
Q
Simplicity
A
- The number of assumptions made
- The best theory is the simplest ( make fewer assumptions)
- The theory making the fewest assumptions is the least likely to be false because there are fewer ways for it to go wrong
~ Requires less evidence to support it
14
Q
Conservatism
A
- How well a theory fits with existing knowledge
- The best theory is the one that fits best with our established beliefs
- While it is possible for the new theory that conflicts with our established understanding to be true, we need good reasons to accept the new theory and dismiss the old one
15
Q
Theory
A
hypothesis that tries to explain why something is the way it is, why something is the case, or why something happened