What is Science?
Ways of Thinking about the World

Why is this Important?

How did we move from stone axes to satellites?

It was through the Scientific Revolution.

What is Science?

Science is a way of obtaining knowledge by means of objective evaluations.

What are the goals of Science?

The discovery and description of regularities in the universe, the world, and in living organisms.

The development of theories to explain these regularities.

What are the goals of Psychological Science?

Let's do the above in a behavioral context.

 

Ways of Knowing and Thinking about the World

Science is different from some other ways of thinking about the world.

It is not based solely on authority or logic. If we listened to the "Authorities", we might still think the Sun goes around the Earth. You must know that Galileo defied "Authority" for Science and was forced to recant under threat of death.

Science uses empirical methods as it is based on experience.

Science is objective. If other people were looking over the shoulder of the scientist - they would all report the same thing.

Science is self-correcting. If you put forward an incorrect thesis - someone will test it and "OOPS" - you will be proven incorrect.

Science is progressive and tentative. We don't stand still - there is also something new to discover - we are never sure that we have the whole truth. This quite different from Authority based knowledge systems that think that there is nothing new to learned or discovered. These systems have the "truth" and that's it. Disagree and face the Inquisition. I think being a scientist would be difficult in an "Authority" based society.

Science is parsimonious. We don't try to have overly complex models. The ones that predict the results with the fewest factors are best. We like to yield Occam's Razor (from William of Occam, a 14^th century philosophy) in order to slice away unnecessary theoretical baggage.