Science: A Way of Knowing & Providing Order to the Universe
Feb 23, 2016
Science: A Way of Knowing & Providing Order to the Universe
• Methods of Science• Explanation in Science• Science and Pseudoscience• The Ordered Universe– Geocentric Universe– Heliocentric Universe– Newton’s Laws and the Founding of Modern
Science
Major Methods of Science
• Observation: descriptions of natural phenomena usually in the search for patterns in nature
• Experiment: manipulation of nature to examine a phenomenon
Deductive Method
• Most typical for natural philosophers following the rediscovery of Aristotle by western Europe
• Explanatory method of Plato and Pythagoras
• Clearly expounded by René Descartes in 1637 [Discours de la méthode (Discourse on the Method)].
René Descartes 1596-1650
Inductive or Empirical Method
• Based on observation• The experimental
method is a subset of the inductive method
• Francis Bacon proposed the Great Instauration
• Novum Organum (1620)
Francis Bacon 1561-1626
Human reason can be decieved in the following ways:
• Idylls of the Tribe (incorrect inference of cause and effect)
• Idylls of the Den (one’s views are influenced by others and may be upheld by ignoring contravening evidence)
• Idylls of the Marketplace (false arguments can be convincing due to ambiguity of communication)
• Idylls of the Theater (theories about the world can be false)
William Gilbert• Contemporary of Bacon• Did not recognize Bacon as a
natural philosopher• Bacon critical of Gilbert’s
explanations– The Alchemists have made a
philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace and Gilbert our countryman hath made a philosophy out of observations of the lodestone.
– [Gilbert] has himself become a magnet; that is, he has ascribed too many things to that force and built a ship out of a shell.
William Gilbert 1544-1603
Explanation
• Hypothesis• Theory• Principle• Law
Attributes of Pseudoscience
• Anything is possible (cannot be falsified)• Vague, exaggerated, untested claims• Refutation of alternative theory, but no
material confirmation of the claim
biology - geology
chemistry physics
mathematics
COM
PLEX
ITY
The Ordered Universe
Construction of Stonehenge• Earthen banks (~3100 BCE)• Wooden Building (~3000 BCE)• Bluestones (~2600 BCE)• Sarsen Stones (2600-2400 BCE)• Final arrangement (2280-1600 BCE)
Aristotle of Stagira 348-322 BCEEudoxus of Cnidus 408-355 BCE
Claudius Ptolemy ~90-168 CE
Nicolaus Copernicus
1473-1543
Giordano Bruno• Dominican and
non-trinitarian• Praised Copernican
system• On trial and
burned at the stake for heresy of Arianism
(1548-1600)
Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler
1546-1601 1571-1630
Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion• Law of Ellipses
• Equal Area Law
• (Period)2 /(Major Axis)3 is the same for all planets.
Galileo Galilei
• Direct observations of the heavens with his improved telescope
• Saw blemishes on the moon and (later) on the sun
• Recorded the Medician stars and explained their changing positions as moons circling Jupiter
1564-1642
Isaac Newton
• Law of Gravity: the strength of the gravitational force between two bodies of mass is relative to the inverse square of the distance between their centers of mass.
• Used this concept of gravity to explain Kepler’s Laws of motion.
1642-1727
Robert Hooke, Edmond Halley, John Flamsteed
Robert Hooke 1635-1703 Edmond Halley 1656-1742 John Flamsteed 1646-1719
Newton’s Laws of Motion
• Conservation of momentum (P=mv)
• ƩP=0