Oct 2 - Scientific enquiry Flashcards
The scientific method can be a useful idealization, but real science…
rarely progresses in such an orderly way
Scientific progress often begins with someone going out and looking at nature in a general way, rather than conducting a careful set of experiments
3 hallmarks of science:
Modern science seeks explanations for observed phenomena that rely solely on natural causes.
Science progresses through the creation and testing of models of nature that explain the observations as simply as possible.
A scientific model must make testable predictions about natural phenomena that would force us to revise or abandon the model if the predictions did not agree with observations.
Occam’s Razor
If agreement with data were the sole criterion for judgment, we could imagine a modern-day Ptolemy adding millions or billions of additional circles to the geocentric model in an effort to improve its agreement with observations
The idea that scientists should prefer the simpler of two models that agree equally well with observations is called Occam’s razor
Objectivity in Science:
Science ultimately provides a means of bringing people to agreement, at least on topics that can be subjected to scientific study
What is a scientific theory?
When a powerful yet simple model makes predictions that survive repeated and varied testing, scientists elevate its status and call it a theory.
Despite its success in explaining observed phenomena, a scientific theory can never be proved true beyond all doubt, because future observations may disagree with its predictions.
How is astrology different from astronomy?
The basic tenet of astrology is that the apparent positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets among the stars in our sky influence human events
Ancient astrologers hoped to learn how the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets influence our lives by charting the skies and seeking correlations with events on Earth
The patterns of influence would eventually become clear, and they would then be able to forecast human events with the same reliability
Stars in Astrology
Key premises of astrology: that there is special meaning in the patterns of the stars in the constellations.
The stars in a constellation don’t necessarily have any physical association, because two stars that are close together in the sky might lie at vastly different distances. Constellations are only apparent associations of stars, with no more physical reality than the water in a desert mirage
Planets in Astrology
Astrology also places great importance on the positions of the planets among the constellations. Again, this idea might have seemed reasonable in ancient times, when it was thought that the planets truly wandered among the stars. Today we know that the planets only appear to wander among the stars
