Misconceptions About Science - 6 views
-
Science is an exciting and dynamic process for discovering how the world works and building that knowledge into powerful and coherent frameworks.
-
the Scientific Method represents how scientists usually write up the results of their studies (and how a few investigations are actually done), but it is a grossly oversimplified representation of how scientists generally build knowledge. The process of science is exciting, complex, and unpredictable.
-
In fact, many scientists recognize that creative thinking is one of the most important skills they have — whether that creativity is used to come up with an alternative hypothesis, to devise a new way of testing an idea, or to look at old data in a new light.
- ...9 more annotations...
-
What's important about scientific reasoning is not what all the different modes of reasoning are called, but the fact that the process relies on careful, logical consideration of how evidence supports or does not support an idea, of how different scientific ideas are related to one another, and of what sorts of things we can expect to observe if a particular idea is true.
-
In fact, there are many ways to test almost any scientific idea; experimentation is only one approach.
-
the rigor of a scientific study has much more to do with the investigator's approach than with the discipline.
-
A 2005 survey of scientists at top research universities found that more than 48% had a religious affiliation and that more than 75% believed that religions convey important truths.
-
While it's true that all scientific ideas are subject to change if warranted by the evidence, many scientific ideas (e.g., evolutionary theory, foundational ideas in chemistry) are supported by many lines of evidence, are extremely reliable, and are unlikely to change.
-
Hypotheses are explanations that are limited in scope, applying to fairly narrow range of phenomena. The term law is sometimes used to refer to an idea about how observable phenomena are related — but the term is also used in other ways within science. Theories are deep explanations that apply to a broad range of phenomena and that may integrate many hypotheses and laws.
-
Because science deals only with natural phenomena and explanations, it cannot support or contradict the existence of supernatural entities — like God.
-
at the cutting edge of scientific research — areas of knowledge that are difficult to represent in introductory textbooks — scientific ideas may change rapidly as scientists test out many different possible explanations trying to figure out which are the most accurate.
-
Scientific research also involves creative problem-solving, communicating with others, logical reasoning, and many other skills that might or might not be a part of every science class. Second, science encompasses a remarkably broad set of activities.
-
-
Review these common misconceptions about science, then use the grade level link in the right sidebar to find out how to address them.
