OBJECTIVES

After finishing this lesson, you should be able to

	¥	define a language in which to discuss observable and quantifiable phenomena.
	¥	know what the terms 'scientific hypotheses' and 'facts' mean.
	¥	classify scientific disciplines.
	¥	compare 'How' theories to 'Why' theories.
	¥	compare 'Reductionist' theories to 'Holistic' ones.



The word 'science' is often bandied about and used in multitudes of contexts, but 
what actually does it mean and signify? Everybody has a vague idea or a fixed view 
as to its meaning, but that's just the trouble: What 'science' or 'scientific' means 
to one person may not be what it means to another. So our first task is to construct 
an objective definition for these terms. We take the word 'scientific' to mean a 
systematic search for order and recurring relationships and the word 'science' to 
mean the body of knowledge obtained through the application of this search. But 
how do we go about finding and recognizing this order?

The term 'order' focuses on phenomena that comes to us from the environment, 
which can include our own bodies, through our sensesÑin short, our interaction with 
the universe. However, this input is immense, so what do we select and concentrate
on? The answer, of course, is Facts, but what are they? Clearly we need an
operational definition of this term in order to use it as a foundation in our
search for order. We therefore take as a definition of 'fact' the following: a 
close agreement of a series of observations by competent observers of the same 
phenomena. This definition introduces the undefined term 'competent,' which we take
to imply consistency; that is, if someone manifestly responds randomly to what
seems to be the same phenomena to most observers, then one must rule this observer
incompetent for this event. Of course we might be shooting ourselves in the foot
with this restriction since this observer might be the only one seeing the true
differences in the different occurrences of the said event. But we will introduce 
other checks in our scientific methodology to show whether that is the case or not,
and we must limit our facts somehow in a reasonable fashion. We would also like our
facts to be repeatable in the sense that a practical procedure (a set of directions
that is possible to carry outat this epoch in history) exists that is as unambiguous
as possible and leads to theobservation of the same phenomena. Such a procedure 
could be 'Go to the southwestcorner of the university campus, wait until it has been
dark for 10 minutes, look vertically up, and observe what is directly above your
head.' If many people carry out these instructions and agree on what they see, then
we have a repeatable 'fact'.

	Of course, not all facts are repeatable - for instance, the creation of the 
universe - and sometimes facts are not exactly repeatable. This is still all right. 
We can deal with this by talking about the probability of observing an event. 
(However, the term 'probability' must also be defined, and this is not as simple as 
it sounds. There is much current debate over its definition, so we will not delve 
into it here.) It should also be noted that facts are dynamic; they can change with 
time since the interpretation of the input of our senses depends on our world view, 
which is forged by the totality of our knowledge, including all past 'facts.' By 
grouping together facts with similar properties, we obtain classes of facts that we 
call ConceptsÑan abstract property of a group of facts. Abstracting facts into 
concepts is obviously practical since then we do not have to talk about individual 
facts all the time. An example of a concept is 'Energy.' We can point to various 
events (facts) that exhibit energy, but there is no one thing 'Energy.' In the 
process of compiling and producing scientific concepts one sometimes discovers 
important relationships between them. These relationships are called Scientific 
Laws. Such a law is Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2

	We can make statements or hypotheses about the universe using facts and 
concepts, but not all hypotheses are equally useful. Sometimes it is impossible to 
decide on the validity of a hypothesis. The hypothesis might be intriguing and 
thought provoking and quite beautiful, but if we are depending on a decision about 
its validity in order to make other hypotheses about nature, we are stuck! Deciding 
on the validity of a hypothesis is somewhat subtle. Of course a practical test 
should exist, but this test must be able to be executed in a reasonable length of 
time, otherwise we are defeating our purpose. Further it is not enough that tests 
exist to show the hypothesis valid. The following case exemplifies this point. Let 
the hypothesis be 'There exists intelligent life in the universe other than on the 
earth.' The test could be to travel around the universe searching for intelligent 
life; however, if one never found such extraterestral life, it would not show that 
the hypothesis is invalid. The next star system might be the one! How can we 
overcome this failing?

	The solution was suggested by the philosopher Karl Popper, who said that if 
we only consider hypotheses that have the possibility of being shown invalid by a 
test, then we have a decision making process that can be closed in a finite time. 
(It is up to us to decide how finite the time should be, although the shorter the 
better as then we can go on to consider other hypotheses that depend on the outcome of
the one under study.) We will call such hypotheses Scientific Hypotheses. An example of
such a hypothesis is 'The Earth will be destroyed within the next 2 minutes to make way
for an intergalactic freeway.' The test for such a hypothesis is just to wait and watch
for 2 minutes and 1 second. The two important elements of scientific hypotheses are that
a test exists that could invalidate it and that this test could be carried out in a 
finitetime. When we collect all these different elementsÑfacts, scientific hypotheses,
concepts, and testsÑand use them to describe and explain the observed facts, we have a
body of knowledge called a Scientific Theory.

	A scientific theory is not true or false, but useful or not useful. It is useful in 
order to make predictions about future events and to describe our present state of 
knowledge in a systematic fashion. The predictions will, of course, be in the form 
of scientific hypotheses. If the predictions, based on the theory, turn out to be 
valid, then the theory is confirmed; if they turn out to be invalid, then the theory 
must be revised. It should be emphasized that a scientific theory should not be 
considered 'true' or 'false,' but rather 'useful' or 'not useful': useful if it
clarifies and simplifies our understanding of the phenomena around us; useful if it
can be utilized to make predictions that are valid. The property of making predictions
that are available to experimental verification (and that can be formulated as
scientific hypotheses) is the crucial self-regulatory and internal consistency check 
for the scientific theory and is the basis of the so called 'Scientific Method,' 
which can be formalized as


                                           
	If there is an inconsistency within the theory or the theory does not match 
with reality, then this procedure will, in time, uncover it. Sometimes this 
formalized strategy has been taken as the working methodology of professional 
scientists, but this is only true in a very loose sense. Scientists, like other human 
beings, tend to work in a much more inspired and random manner, often directed 
by feelings of symmetries and intuitions rather than by systematic deductions; 
however, in hindsight their discoveries can often be ordered into such patterns.

	It is probably wise at this stage to collect all new terminology that has been 
precisely defined:

	Scientific
	Science
	Facts
	Concepts
	Scientific Hypotheses
	Competent Observers
	Scientific Law
	Scientific Theory
	Scientific Method

Check back in this commentary to clarify and note what the precise definitions 
are.

	Since there are so many phenomena to study, scientists have chosen to become
 specialized, collecting the phenomena into subgroups and designating the 
study of these subgroups as different scientific disciplinesÑphysics, chemistry, 
biochemistry, biology, and so on. The subject matter that is the realm of each 
discipline is often more or less determined by tradition and the size and energy of 
the phenomena. For instance, chemistry is basically the study of molecules (i.e., 
combinations of atoms), though if the molecules are associated with life processes 
and are large, this study becomes biochemistry. Physics on the other hand deals 
with more elementary (i.e., smaller) building blocks of nature that are usually 
more energetic than those studied in chemistry. However, traditionally electricity 
and magnetism have always been in the realm of physics, although these are 
properties of solid materials that contain countless trillions and trillions of atoms!
Since chemistry also studies solids, especially crystals, one can see that often there
 is an overlap between disciplines. This is a strength, as tools and concepts developed
in one discipline can lead to new insights in another. In this course we shall be
concerned with phenomena that have traditionally been studied in the discipline physics.


We have described how to construct a scientific theory and what its function 
should beÑits usefulness in organizing knowledge in a systematic fashion and its 
ability to predict correctly future events. A theory may explain how things work 
and behave as they do; for instance, it may explain how a bacteria cell divides into 
two every few seconds thus building up a huge population that produces an 
infection and how the bacteria would react to agents that destroy it. Such a theory 
is clearly useful, does organize information, and is predictive. This type of theory, 
called Epismic, has the desired properties of a theory, but is this sufficient and 
is it entirely satisfying? A lot of scientists would argue it is and that we should 
not aim for any other type of theory. However, it has been argued by Hans Primas that 
such theories are not satisfying and not what we are or should be aiming towards. 
He argues that what scientists really seek (or at least scientists in the true 
tradition of science) are theories that explain why things occur. He calls such 
theories Ontic. Primas feels that the creation or discovery of these theories is the 
true Ôholy grail of science' and that Epismic theories are just useful technological 
constructs. Is his view too poetic? Is he asking the impossible from a scientific 
theory? All of this is well suited to a philosophical debate and is something to 
ponder, but I have no answer here.

	We used a derivative of the word technology in the preceding paragraph, but 
have not defined it as we did the word 'science' previously. A possible definition, 
suggested by Hewitt, is 'Étools, techniques, and procedures for implementing the 
findings of science.' Comparing this to the definition of the word 'science' leads to 
an interesting discussion on the morality and ethics of the disclosure of scientific 
discoveries vis a vis the morality and ethics of the technological implementation of 
the discoveries. I leave this for the reader to ponder.


	Scientific theories are complex constructs and thus have many properties 
that classify them. Another one is whether they are reductionistic or holistic. A 
reductionistic theory is one where the properties of larger objects are seen as 
determined by the properties of their constituent objects and the interaction 
between these smaller objects. A colloquial way of stating this is to say that the 
sum is the total of its parts. A holistic theory would assert that the sum is more 
than the total of its parts, that new properties are formed when collections of parts 
interact and these properties are entirely absent in the parts. Traditional physics 
tends to be a reductionist theory, its basic tenet being that if all fundamental 
interactions and elementary particles are characterized and are a part of a 
consistent theory, then all the properties of all material objects could be in 
principle predicted. Admittedly, this would be a clumsy way of describing 
properties of complex objects, but it would in essence be possible. On the other 
hand, sociology or psychology asserts that certain social or psychological concepts 
could not be possibly derived from the properties of elementary particles and their 
interactions. Actually these days even some physicists assert that certain 
properties are manifestations of complexity alone and do not depend on 
constituent particles.