So, throughout the entire semester, we've talked about various definitions of science and scientists. At the beginning, we tried to determined what really classified someone as a scientist, and I have since wondered if the things that Dr. Tiff has had us read have changed our own perspectives of what science and scientists are. Are they different not than they were on day one of class?
Something else that I've been thinking about is another aspect of a shift in scientific thought. Most recently, we read the Foucalt article and noted a shift in scientific thinking - it changed from describing similarities to noting differences and using reason and deduction to "perform science." How does this relate to the early pieces we read that focused on "how to thinking scientifically?" For instance, many of the first pieces we read by Orwell, La Farge, and Huxley tried to define how science should be thought about and how scientists think. Do the many different versions of scientific thinking make actually thinking scientifically more difficult? Or is the act of scientific thinking the thing that is difficult to define? Also, how does Foucalt's view of scientific thinking affect your own perspective of how scientific thought has shifted? Do you think science will continue to shift or will it finally find some sort of balance and harmony within itself?
Until this semester I never thought of the way people (in the past, present and fictional future) viewed science. I didn't realize how often science has crossed paths with literature.
ReplyDeleteIn "We Are All Scienctists", Huxley tries to make people okay with science by finding similarities--by showing that everyone does science naturally. (Huxley is from the 19th century though, so according to the Foucalt article the 1600's on should be in the "difference" stage but...)
I think that science is pretty stolid in most cases, safely resting on a mound of well researched facts/theories; but still needs to be open to new ideas and viewpoints. Especially with the bizarre new area of quantum physics.
When thinking about the universe, it makes me wonder if we will ever have all the answers. I think science will never cease to expand. There is an infinite amount of questions that are yet to be answered, and when those questions are answered they open up 5 more questions. As Heidi said we are now delving into the realm of quantum physics, but what happens when we conquer that territory. Will we have to study things even smaller than what is studied in quantum mechanics? What about string theory, Black holes, reaching the speed of light, all these things are hypothesized everyday and are yet to be answered. The real question to me is will science ever grow enough to answer all the questions? Will we ever know if there are such things as parallel universes? Because of the human curiosity, as we discussed in class, we will always ask questions about why things happen. This causes science to shift away from its current path. For this reason I feel that science will be ever changing and shifting.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the more I study in this class, the more I confuse about science. I still do not agree that everyone can be a scientist. Only the elites of human beings can be the scientists.
ReplyDeleteLogic thinking is only necessary but not sufficient for science. Scientists also have to have extremely strong perspicacity, willpower, and even creativity，Scientists actually do not earn a lot of money, but they work terribly hard. I think they are naturally motivated by themselves.
I think the shift from thinking about similarities between ideas/entities to differences came out of necessity. I feel like around the time of the shift was also around the time where the amount of scientific knowledge started to explode, and that only acknowledging similarities would have been extremely confusing. So, I don't think the act of thinking scientifically will change anymore. It can only be one or the other, and going back to saying "well this is kind of like this but this part is a little bit different in this way" would be too confusing, especially for newer, more intricate discoveries. So I believe it'll stay the same way it is today.
ReplyDeleteThe other reason that scientific thinking and formalities will probably stay the way they are today is because of how standardized science is today. If the experiment isn't conducted with scientific rigor, then the scientist will just be scoffed at and called a hack. Think about Mangala in The Calcutta Chromosome-- Farley was appalled! And she made a legitimate discovery, too.
I agree with Basil's opinion that the act of thinking scientifically will not change anymore. It will always be either deduction or induction. However, most new knowledge we have today is based on induction, which means we are not one hundred percent sure about them. Different from deduction, induction can only give us the best answer to explain the phenomenon, but the answer can still be wrong. All in all, it seems that we can never know the truth of everything. The more knowledge we know, the more questions we will have.
ReplyDelete