Pub Date : 2019-07-18DOI: 10.1017/9781108569149.015
{"title":"About the Author","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/9781108569149.015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108569149.015","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":118072,"journal":{"name":"What Science Is and How It Really Works","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131265402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-18DOI: 10.1017/9781108569149.002
{"title":"The Knowledge Problem, or What Can We Really “Know”?","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/9781108569149.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108569149.002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":118072,"journal":{"name":"What Science Is and How It Really Works","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127469142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-01DOI: 10.1017/9781108569149.012
J. Zimring
R. A. Fisher was one of the most influential scientific thinkers of the twentieth century. He was mentioned earlier for his seminal contributions regarding accurate estimates of the likelihood of an error emerging from a given data set ( P values, discussed in Chapter 9). Fisher appreciated that the correlation of two variables only indicated that they have some association, but could not demonstrate causality. In the twentieth century, data began to emerge that people who smoked had a higher rate of lung cancer than those who did not smoke, beginning a debate that would rage for close to a century regarding the carcinogenic effects of tobacco. Unlike most who began to develop the view that smoking tobacco probably increased one’s risk of cancer, Fisher became convinced that it was in fact the other way around; he essentially argued that cancer caused smoking. 1 This view, which seems curious in retrospect, was quite logical at the time (and remains logically valid).
{"title":"The Societal Factor, or How Social Dynamics Affect Science","authors":"J. Zimring","doi":"10.1017/9781108569149.012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108569149.012","url":null,"abstract":"R. A. Fisher was one of the most influential scientific thinkers of the twentieth century. He was mentioned earlier for his seminal contributions regarding accurate estimates of the likelihood of an error emerging from a given data set ( P values, discussed in Chapter 9). Fisher appreciated that the correlation of two variables only indicated that they have some association, but could not demonstrate causality. In the twentieth century, data began to emerge that people who smoked had a higher rate of lung cancer than those who did not smoke, beginning a debate that would rage for close to a century regarding the carcinogenic effects of tobacco. Unlike most who began to develop the view that smoking tobacco probably increased one’s risk of cancer, Fisher became convinced that it was in fact the other way around; he essentially argued that cancer caused smoking. 1 This view, which seems curious in retrospect, was quite logical at the time (and remains logically valid).","PeriodicalId":118072,"journal":{"name":"What Science Is and How It Really Works","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116808442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-01DOI: 10.1017/9781108569149.007
J. Zimring
Traditionally, scientists and philosophers of science have worked under the assumption that humans are pretty good at making observations of the natural world. Many thinkers, as far back as antiquity, recognized that experience could lead us astray and thus favored deductive systems of reasoning; however, to justify deduction, early philosophers argued for humans’ innate ability to perceive fundamental truths and correct base axioms. Empiricists clearly rejected this idea, favoring our ability to observe nature by using our senses over some perception of fundamental truths. However, both camps seemed to accept that humans could observe, or at least gather base information, about the natural world in a meaningful way, although there has not been uniform agreement on this. 1
{"title":"How Human Observation of the Natural World Can Differ from What the World Really Is","authors":"J. Zimring","doi":"10.1017/9781108569149.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108569149.007","url":null,"abstract":"Traditionally, scientists and philosophers of science have worked under the assumption that humans are pretty good at making observations of the natural world. Many thinkers, as far back as antiquity, recognized that experience could lead us astray and thus favored deductive systems of reasoning; however, to justify deduction, early philosophers argued for humans’ innate ability to perceive fundamental truths and correct base axioms. Empiricists clearly rejected this idea, favoring our ability to observe nature by using our senses over some perception of fundamental truths. However, both camps seemed to accept that humans could observe, or at least gather base information, about the natural world in a meaningful way, although there has not been uniform agreement on this. 1","PeriodicalId":118072,"journal":{"name":"What Science Is and How It Really Works","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114962638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-01DOI: 10.1017/9781108569149.014
J. Zimring
Based on the discussions in this book, the following definition of science is suggested to my fellow scientists and nonscientists alike. First and foremost, science is an outgrowth of normal human observation, reasoning, conclusion, and prediction. Scientists and nonscientists both depend upon induction and the assumptions it entails – assumptions that are imperfect and don’t always hold. They assume that the future will resemble the past to a greater extent than by guessing alone, and they also assume that what one has encountered today is more representative of things not yet encountered than can be arrived at by random guessing. Both scientists and nonscientists retroduce causes for the effects they observe, a form of reasoning that suffers from the fallacy of affirming the consequent. As a result of this fallacy, scientists and nonscientists both retroduce hypotheses of causal things that likely never existed, such as phlogiston being the cause of heat, a vital force being required for the types of chemicals that come from living things, and the great Sananda causing a prophet’s pen to write. One needs ongoing observation, and if possible experimentation, to further assess which retroduced causes one should hold onto (at least for now) and which should be rejected (at least for now). Scientists and nonscientists both use deduction (or at least a form of reasoning that resembles deduction but may not adhere to strict standards of formal logic) to make further predictions based on their retroduced hypotheses. Scientists and nonscientists both have fallacies in their hypothetico-deductive (HD) thinking, make mistaken observations, have cognitive biases, and fall in love with their hypotheses, noticing observations that confirm and ignoring observations that refute. Scientists and nonscientists are both susceptible to social pressures, social biases, and manipulation (intentional and unintentional) by the groups and societies in which they find themselves.
{"title":"Putting It All Together to Describe “What Science Is and How It Really Works”","authors":"J. Zimring","doi":"10.1017/9781108569149.014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108569149.014","url":null,"abstract":"Based on the discussions in this book, the following definition of science is suggested to my fellow scientists and nonscientists alike. First and foremost, science is an outgrowth of normal human observation, reasoning, conclusion, and prediction. Scientists and nonscientists both depend upon induction and the assumptions it entails – assumptions that are imperfect and don’t always hold. They assume that the future will resemble the past to a greater extent than by guessing alone, and they also assume that what one has encountered today is more representative of things not yet encountered than can be arrived at by random guessing. Both scientists and nonscientists retroduce causes for the effects they observe, a form of reasoning that suffers from the fallacy of affirming the consequent. As a result of this fallacy, scientists and nonscientists both retroduce hypotheses of causal things that likely never existed, such as phlogiston being the cause of heat, a vital force being required for the types of chemicals that come from living things, and the great Sananda causing a prophet’s pen to write. One needs ongoing observation, and if possible experimentation, to further assess which retroduced causes one should hold onto (at least for now) and which should be rejected (at least for now). Scientists and nonscientists both use deduction (or at least a form of reasoning that resembles deduction but may not adhere to strict standards of formal logic) to make further predictions based on their retroduced hypotheses. Scientists and nonscientists both have fallacies in their hypothetico-deductive (HD) thinking, make mistaken observations, have cognitive biases, and fall in love with their hypotheses, noticing observations that confirm and ignoring observations that refute. Scientists and nonscientists are both susceptible to social pressures, social biases, and manipulation (intentional and unintentional) by the groups and societies in which they find themselves.","PeriodicalId":118072,"journal":{"name":"What Science Is and How It Really Works","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132695764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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