RI KI Y5 Knowledge and Science Notes 2023

RI KI Y5 Term 3 Knowledge and Science 1 Scientific Knowledge Class Notes Essay Questions Use these essay questions to guide you in your study of Science as an area of knowledge in KI. 1. Discuss the view that scientific knowledge is the most important kind of knowledge for the progress of a society (2007 A Levels) 2. ‘The social sciences are not really sciences, because they do not construct their knowledge according to scientific methods.’ Discuss. (2008 A Levels) 3. Discuss critically the extent to which the investigator’s opinions and beliefs can influence enquiries in the field of either history or science. (2009 A Levels) 4. Science is the only field of human enquiry that can offer us explanations. (2010 A Levels) 5. The sciences are more successful than the humanities because they are based on empirical facts as opposed to opinions. Discuss. (2011 A Levels) 6. We cannot know about what cannot be falsified. Discuss. (2013 A Levels) 7. Can the sciences ever explain why people behave the way they do? (2014 A Levels) 8. Critically assess the claim that the sciences are the most important form of inquiry for learning about the world. (2015 A Levels) 9. ‘There are no significant differences between an inquiry into whether a painting is beautiful and an inquiry into the atomic composition of a molecule.’ Critically assess this view. (2016 A Levels) 10. ‘The value of natural science lies not in its truth but in its utility.’ Critically discuss this view. (2018 A Levels) 11. ‘Scientific knowledge is simply a matter of agreement among experts.’ Critically discuss this view. (2019 A Levels) 12. Assess the extent to which science gives us knowledge of the world. (2020 A Levels) 13. To what extent is scientific knowledge reliable? (Section B) 14. Compare the roles played by reasoning in Mathematics and Science. (Section B) 15. Does the Scientific Method make science reliable? (Section B) 16. ‘Mathematics is more reliable than Science.’ Discuss. (Section B) 17. Compare the roles played by reason and imagination in at least two areas of knowledge. (Section A) 18. If scientific knowledge is provisional, to what extent is it knowledge? (Section B) 19. Should we trust science to give us a complete understanding of the world? (Section B) 20. Science offers us certainty and objectivity. Discuss. (Section B) 21. As a means of knowledge acquisition, Science is a seriously flawed. Discuss. (Section B) 22. “We can believe in science because scientific knowledge is objectively acquired.” Compare the degree of objectivity between two different fields of science. (Section B) 23. “The notion of absolute truth is shown to be in poor correspondence with the actual development of science. Scientific truths are better regarded as relationships holding in some limited domain.” (David Bohm) To what extent do you agree? (Section B)

RI KI Y5 Term 3 Knowledge and Science 2 A) Nature & Construction of Science The Scientific Method Exercise: The Scientific Method Debate Read the following 2 articles and make a summary of each of them in point form, making clear where the writers differ. Which point of view would you agree with? Article 1: Introduction to the Scientific Method I. The scientific method has four steps 1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena. 2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation. 3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations. 4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments. If the experiments bear out the hypothesis it may come to be regarded as a theory or law of nature (more on the concepts of hypothesis, model, theory and law below). If the experiments do not bear out the hypothesis, it must be rejected or modified. What is key in the description of the scientific method just given is the predictive power (the ability to get more out of the theory than you put in; see Barrow, 1991) of the hypothesis or theory, as tested by experiment. It is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only disproved. There is always the possibility that a new observation or a new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory. II. Testing hypotheses As just stated, experimental tests may lead either to the confirmation of the hypothesis, or to the ruling out of the hypothesis. The scientific method requires that an hypothesis be ruled out or modified if its predictions are clearly and repeatedly incompatible with experimental tests. Further, no matter how elegant a theory is, its predictions must agree with experimental results if we are to believe that it is a valid description of nature. In physics, as in every experimental science, "experiment is supreme" and experimental verification of hypothetical predictions is absolutely necessary. Experiments may test the theory directly (for example, the observation of a new particle) or may test for consequences derived from the theory using mathematics and logic (the rate of a radioactive decay process requiring the existence of the new particle). Note that the necessity of experiment also implies that a theory must be testable. Theories which cannot be tested, because, for instance, they have no observable ramifications (such as, a particle whose characteristics make it unobservable), do not qualify as scientific theories. If the predictions of a long-standing theory are found to be in disagreement with new experimental results, the theory may be discarded as a description of reality, but it may continue to be applicable within a limited range of measurable parameters. For example, the laws of classical mechanics (Newton's Laws) are valid only when the velocities of interest are much smaller than the speed of light (that is, in algebraic form, when v/c << 1). Since this is the domain of a large portion of human experience, the laws of classical mechanics are widely, usefully and correctly applied in a large range of technological and scientific problems. Yet in nature we observe a

RI KI Y5 Term 3 Knowledge and Science 3 domain in which v/c is not small. The motions of objects in this domain, as well as motion in the "classical" domain, are accurately described through the equations of Einstein's theory of relativity. We believe, due to experimental tests, that relativistic theory provides a more general, and therefore more accurate, description of the principles governing our universe, than the earlier "classical" theory. Further, we find that the relativistic equations reduce to the classical equations in the limit v/c << 1. Similarly, classical physics is valid only at distances much larger than atomic scales (x >> 10-8 m). A description which is valid at all length scales is given by the equations of quantum mechanics. We are all familiar with theories which had to be discarded in the face of experimental evidence. In the field of astronomy, the earth-centered description of the planetary orbits was overthrown by the Copernican system, in which the sun was placed at the center of a series of concentric, circular planetary orbits. Later, this theory was modified, as measurements of the planets motions were found to be compatible with elliptical, not circular, orbits, and still later planetary motion was found to be derivable from Newton's laws. Error in experiments have several sources. First, there is error intrinsic to instruments of measurement. Because this type of error has equal probability of producing a measurement higher or lower numerically