Daily Newsletter

August 21, 2012 Scientific Thought

Today we start to look at the question: what is science? Science is more than facts. While the facts are important, science is not stagnant. We are constantly uncovering new facts, and having to analyze an incorporate these facts into our historic body of facts. Science is ever increasing its knowlege base.
So, let's start with a slightly different question: What is the goal of science?
Take a moment and think about it. Why do people "perform" science? Why do thing try to "figure" things out? Why do they "do" experiments?
One of my favorite phrases in answer to this question is that science allows us the power to predict and control natural phenomena. If you start looking into the Philosophy of Science you will find a number of different definitions, but for us, it starts the discussion. So, now, as a biologist, what do you want to predict? What do you want to control?
So, there is some feature of a leaving organism that you want to predict. How do you go about it? That is where scientific thought comes in to play. You will have not doubt heard about the scientific method...right? That is the general model that we use, and it is based on the Hypetheticodeductive Model of Reasoning. Instead of naming the "step" of the scientific method, I want you to instead break it down and really think about what it means.
First off, look at the word Hypetheticodeductive. It is constructed of two words: Hypothesis and Deductive. These are the two critical features, but what do they mean. That is your challenge for the day.

Daily Challenge

What is a hypothesis? What defines a hypothesis? How do you know when you have a real hypothesis? What does the word Deductive mean? How does it apply to science?