The Scientific Method: Reflections from a Practitioner PDF
Preview The Scientific Method: Reflections from a Practitioner
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD Reflections from a Practitioner Massimiliano Di Ventra UniversityofCalifornia SanDiego,USA 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©MassimilianoDiVentra2018 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2018 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversitypress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018931028 ISBN978-0-19-882562-3 DOI10.1093/oso/9780198825623.001.0001 Printedandboundby CPIGroup(UK)Ltd,Croydon,CR04YY To Elena,Matteo,andFrancesca ingratitudefortheircentralanduniqueroleinmylife Preface I am a theoretical physicist who has been working for over twenty years in academia, publishing regularly in refereed journals, teaching graduate and undergraduate classes, training several graduate students and post- graduateresearchers,travelingtheworldtoexchangeideas at conferences, and enjoying the creative aspect of my profession. Overtheyears,however,whilediscussingwitheducated laypeople interested in Science, students, and even some researchers, I have come to realize that they attribute to Science the ability to answer questions that have always beenaddressedbyothersourcesofknowledge,inparticu- lar,PhilosophyorReligion. Withthisinmind,Ifelttheneedtodiscusstheseissues with my own students. In particular, I wanted to better viii Preface conveytothemboththereachand,mostimportantly,the limitsofScienceandtheknowledgewecanacquirefromthis humanenterprise. Encouragedbytheirfeedback,Iofferedtoteachaclasson the scientific method in the Department of Physics of the UniversityofCalifornia,SanDiego,inthefallof2012and springof2013. While researching for my lectures, I realized that the misjudgedroleofScienceisoftenamplifiedbythefrequent mis-representationofscientificdiscoveriesortheoriesbythe media,withusscientistssometimescomplicitinthisact. The unfortunate result is that oftentimes—pressed by the obvious desire to increase readership—a scientific hypothesis is elevated to a fact. These “news” spark the imagination of laypeople, sedimenting into our collective consciousness“truths”thathavemuchmoreincommon withsciencefictionthanreality. Navigatingscientifictopicsmaythenseemdaunting.Not allofusaregroundedinadvancedMathematicsorPhysics orotherdisciplinesnecessarytojudgethevalueofascien- tificstatement. Even the practitioners of a particular discipline cannot claim expertise in all the other subjects of scientific endeavor,andhencecannotdiscusswithfamiliarityallthe bodyofscientificknowledgethatiscontinuallygenerated, seeminglyatanever-increasingrate. Whilethisworkingknowledgemaynotbeavailabletoall ofus,itismyconvictionthatitisunnecessarytoevaluate a scientific claim. In fact, Science rests on a well-defined methodology thatprovidesaguidingsetofrulesforlearning Preface ix aboutNature,and,atthesametime,definestheboundaries ofscientificinquiry. WhetherwediscussBiologyorChemistryorPhysics,the scientificmethodiscommontoallNaturalSciencesandisthe fabricandthebackboneofscientificknowledge.Familiarity with the scientific method is not only a necessary tool in moderntimes,butitisalsowellwithinreachofeveryone, whetherapractitionerlikeme,oraninterestedlayman. Thisshortbookatalevelaccessibletofirst-yearunder- graduate students of all Natural Sciences—and quite pos- siblytohighschoolstudents—attemptstoprovidesucha tooltoawideaudience.ItoriginatesfromthenotesIhave writtenformyclassonthesamesubject. By Natural Sciences I mean all those disciplines that describephenomenaoccurringinNature,suchasPhysics, Chemistry, and Biology. (Some of the points discussed in thisbookmayalsoberelevanttotheSocialSciences,suchas EconomicsorPsychology,whenempiricalapproachesare employed.) Although Mathematics is the language in which we express many of these phenomena, its method and goals are substantially different and will not be treated in this book. The book addresses the following concepts: objective realityandapproximatedescriptionofnaturalphenomena; the role of the observer; the difference among objective facts, hypotheses, and theory; the meaning of “falsifi- ability”; the “absence of democracy” in the pursuit of scientific truths; and the fundamental and inalienable role ofexperimentalevidenceinscientificknowledge.
The list of books you might like
