Inquiry in the Natural World – Spring 2005

Topic 1: What is Inquiry in the Natural World?

Topic objectives

1. Appreciate the types of questions asked by scientists about the natural world.

2. Understand the classic (hypothetico-deductive) scientific method: (a) how it works, (b) the roles played by inductive and deductive reasoning, and (c) why this method is an incomplete description of the actual nature of scientific advances.

3. Be able to apply the steps of the classic scientific method to simple problems.

4. Be able to recognize instances of the ten “rules of thumb” in the scientific advances described throughout this course.

5. Know how the philosophical approach of ancient Greeks like Plato and Aristotle differed from what came before and after.

6. Appreciate the role of the Christian church and Arab civilization in the development and transmission of scientific thought in the Middle Ages.

7. Know how the Renaissance prepared the way for but differed from the Scientific Revolution of the 1600s.

8. Appreciate how Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Robert Boyle contributed to the development of the modern-day scientific process.

Reading for Wednesday (Large lecture in Murphy Auditorium)

Chapter 1: How does science work?

Reading for Friday (Small lecture in regular classroom)

Chapter 2: Before there was science

Active Learning Exercise

1. Specifically relate the ‘puddling behavior’ experiment to the scientific method

a. how did the observations lead to the suggested hypotheses?

b. how does this study demonstrate a well-controlled scientific experiment?

1. what were the control and experimental treatments?

2. does the placement of the trays / decoy constitute a bias?

3. why is a blind test important?

4. what other factors might have been important in the design?

c. how do the results lead to the conclusions made?

d. what other hypotheses might be developed and experiments performed?

Questions for discussion:

1. What is science, in your own words? Why do people do it? Does it matter to society?

2. How did the Greek approach to explaining natural phenomena differ from those before them?

3. How did Plato and Aristotle differ in their approaches to the study of natural phenomena?

4. What effect did the Medieval Christian church have on scientific thought in post-Roman Europe?

Reading for Monday (Small lecture in regular classroom)

Chapter 3: The birth of science

Questions for discussion

1. What happened during the Renaissance to encourage people to explore the natural world for themselves?

2. What new ways of thinking about nature were advanced during the scientific revolution?

3. What were the contributions of Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Robert Boyle in the scientific revolution?