Chapter 2 - What is Science?

• These assertions all have one thing in common: they are all incorrect in some way. Science isn't only a collection of facts that teach us about the world. Scientific theories cannot be proven; thus, a scientific theory cannot be confirmed. Even if it is incorrect, the statement that the sun circles around the earth is a scientific statement.

• Science undoubtedly has its critics, owing in great part to the events of the nineteenth century. Some heinous acts were either committed in the name of science, were "justified" on scientific grounds, or were, at the least, made feasible by science. Although we should never turn a blind eye to the harm that research may cause, we feel that blaming science for what some scientists have done in its name is just as erroneous as blaming religion for what some believers have done in its name.

• But, what exactly is science? Science is first and foremost a technique; nevertheless, it is also a culture. The epigraphs at the beginning of this chapter are intended to encapsulate what we could term science's "culture." Some of the unfavorable perceptions of science stem from how people believe science's culture to be: cold, calculating, confident, and arrogant.

• Political science has a subfield called comparative politics. But what is political science, exactly? It is, after all, the scientific study of politics. What do you think of it for tautology? It is clear that, as written, this definition is not especially instructive.

• Is science, as many of us study in high school, just a body of information or a collection of facts? While many scientists may have described science in this way in the past, this concept is essentially inadequate today. If this is a correct definition of science,

The Science Method

• Although there is no explicitly stated scientific method that is followed by all scientists, the essential characteristics of the scientific process can be summarized as follows.

  • Step 1: Question

    • The scientific method begins with observation of the world and the formulation of a question or conundrum. When we see something that is so unexpected or surprising that we question, "Why did that happen?" We require a hypothesis or explanation. It's worth noting that the surprise that greets such a discovery, and that makes it a mystery worth solving, indicates that the observation contradicts some prior assumption or belief we had about how the universe works.

  • Step 2: Theory or Model

    • After we've seen something strange, we need to come up with a hypothesis or model to explain it. We'll use the terms theories, models, and explanations interchangeably in the following sections. The term "theory" is used by scientists to define a set of logically coherent claims that explain why things happen the way they do.

  • Step 3: Implication (Hypothesis)

    • The third stage in the scientific method is to draw implications from the model that are not related to the ones we set out to explain. What does it mean when we say "other than those we set out to explain"? So, surely, the model we build will give a rational explanation for the perplexing observation we began with; after all, that is exactly what it was meant to accomplish. In other words, a model can never be disproved if only the observations that were used to build it are utilized to test it.

  • Step 4: Observe the World (Test the Hypothesis)

    • The fourth stage is to determine if the model's implications are supported by observation. It's important to remember that the objective isn't to establish how correct our model's implications are by defending them dogmatically. On the contrary, we should make every effort to disprove them, because it is only when a theory has weathered these challenges that we can begin to have faith in it.

  • Step 5: Evaluation

    • Our hypothesis is said to be confirmed if the implications derived from it are seen. It's important to note that our theory hasn't been confirmed or validated. This is an essential topic that we will discuss in greater depth in the following portion of this chapter.7 We used to refer to science as a way for “provisionally” comprehending the world since we could never verify a scientific explanation.

Science

• Because student-athletes regularly miss courses to compete out of state, they typically send a letter from their athletic director to their instructors requesting cooperation. Over the years, a specific professor has noted that women who compete in sports usually outperform the average student in terms of academic performance. Why female athletes would perform better while skipping lessons is a mystery.

• This approach is unquestionably more universal (but not necessarily more correct). Even yet, there are at least two flaws in this concept as it now stands. To begin with, it lacks a sense of method; it essentially asserts that athletes share some innate characteristic of intelligence that causes them to excel academically. In fact, this merely puts the phenomena back one step in terms of explanation; we now need to figure out why athletes are clever. Second, the model almost qualifies as a tautology. It basically states that athletes do better academically because they are perceived to be intelligent.

• Reasons female athletes may perform better academically than other students The logic of the argument applies to all athletes, not only female athletes, which is an appealing element of the concept. It certainly applies to everyone who participates in a sport that rewards hard work. As a result, by eliminating the unique reference to athletes, we may be able to generalize this model.

• We now have three distinct (or competing) theories that all explain the perplexing observation we began with. But how can one know which model is the best? One method to do this is to put some of the theories' implications to the test.

Review Tables

• 2.2 Chart

• 2.3 Chart

• India is an example of a non-wealthy democracy. The argument is flawed, not because we can come up with an example of a true democracy that is not affluent (India), but because we are not obligated to accept the conclusion based on the validity of the major and minor premises.

• Does it follow from the fact that the observed country is not affluent that it will not be a democracy in the context of our running example? Intuitively, we may assume that there are other reasons why a country, despite its poverty, is a democracy.