What is Science

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What is Science?

• Kirk Bertsche
• January, 2008

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What is Science?

• As Scientists View it
• Classic scientific method
• Examples
• Pathological science
• Philosophical Considerations
• Kuhn, et al
• Limits of science

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The Scientific Method
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The Scientific Method

• Scientific Theories
• NOT Provable!
• Testable (disprovable, falsifiable, repeatable)
• Predictive Value
• Simplicity Elegance (Ockhams Razor)
• DEscription, not PREscription

• Scientific Attitudes
• Respect for Natural world
• Curiosity
• Appeal to Experiment, not to Authority
• Abstraction
• Honesty with the Facts
• Skepticism
• Willingness to Change Mind

(from The Clockwork Image by Donald M. MacKay)
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Historical Contributions

• Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
• empiricism, experimentalism
• inductive approach
• Kepler (1571-1630)
• mathematical description (causation)
• Galileo (1564-1642)
• abstraction, creativity
• science of description, not purpose

(from Issues in Science and Religion by Ian
Barbour)
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Science combines three logical approaches

• Deduction
• Consequences of a theory
• Induction
• Implications of repeated experiments
• Abduction
• Inference to best explanation

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Example of Science in ActionLouis Alvarez

• Problem unknown sedimentation rate at KT
  boundary
• Approach use cosmic dust as clock
• New problem unaccountably high concentrations
• Hypotheses
• Supernova--no cosmogenic isotopes
• Volcano--doesnt account for enough
• H2 cloud--too slow
• Meteor/Asteroid--plausible
• Further studies
• found at other locales
• found at 3 other extinctions
• shocked quartz, microtectites
• Yucatan peninsula site

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Pathological Science

• Pseudoscience, or the science of things that
  arent so
• Defined by Langmuir, 1953
• Examples
• N-rays
• ESP
• Cold Fusion

(from Pathological Science by Langmuir, Physics
Today, xx)
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Symptoms of Pathological Science

• Cause-effect relationship
• maximum effect from cause of barely detectable
  intensity
• magnitude of effect substantially independent of
  cause intensity
• Magnitude of effect close to limit of
  detectability
• Claims of great accuracy
• Fantastic theories suggested
• Criticisms met by ad hoc excuses
• Ratio of supporters to critics
• rises to near 50, then falls gradually to
  oblivion

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Views of Philosophers of Science

• Karl Popper
• Thomas Kuhn
• Paul Feyerabend
• (Michael Polanyi)

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Karl Popper (1902-1994)

• Falsifiability is key to scientific theory
• Psychoanalysis, Marxism not scientific
• Theories only indirectly testable
• Problem of induction
• Why believe past behavior will continue?

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Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

• Structure of Scientific Revolutions
• Science in three phases
• Prescience (no central paradigm)
• Normal science (enlarging central paradigm)
• Revolutionary science (paradigm shift)
• Paradigm choice
• Difficult to compare different paradigms
• Fundamentally irrational and relativistic??
• Yes--Kuhns disciples
• No--Kuhn (3d ed), working scientists

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Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)

• Has increased awareness of paradigms in
  scientific community
• Over-states differences between normal and
  revolutionary science
• Critique of Kuhn by Freeman Dyson
• Kuhn describes paradigm shift through new
  concepts
• Paradigm shift from within field
• Example quantum mechanics
• Kuhn ignores paradigm shift through new tools
• Paradigm shift from outside field
• Example Galileos telescope

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Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994)

• Student of Popper, disagreed with teacher
• Science doesnt follow scientific method
• Falsification is problematic
• Theories often not consistent with all data
• Science is anarchic

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Limits of Science

• Origins vs operational science
• Methodological naturalism
• Not all truth is found in science

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Forensic vs Empirical Science

• Origins (forensic, historical) science
• Event occurred in past, cannot be repeated
• Present effects can be tested and observed (and
  tests can be repeated)
• Operational science
• Event can be repeated in present
• Testing is often indirect or remote
• Differences are more quantitative than qualitative

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Methodological Naturalism

• Implicit agreement among scientists
• Science only deals with naturalistic phenomena
• Miracles, spiritual world are outside realm of
  science
• Spiritual world vs science
• Science--not the only or best avenue to all truth
• Spiritual--not scientific, not lesser or false

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Limits of Science

• The existence of a limit to science is, however,
  made clear by its inability to answer childlike
  elementary questions having to do with first and
  last things questions such as How did
  everything begin? What are we all here for?
  What is the point of living?. Sir Peter
  Medawar, Nobel laureate,

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Limits of Science

• I am very astonished that the scientific picture
  of the real world around me is very deficient.
  It gives us a lot of factual information, puts
  all of our experience in a magnificently
  consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about
  all and sundry that is really near to our heart,
  that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a
  word about red and blue, bitter and sweet,
  physical pain and physical delight it knows
  nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God
  and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to
  answer questions in these domains, but the
  answers are very often so silly that we are not
  inclined to take them seriously. Erwin
  Schroedinger, pioneer of quantum mechanics

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Scientific LawDEscriptive, not PREscriptive

• Scientific laws do not prescribe what must
  happen they describe what has happened. The
  earth does not go round the sun because Newton's
  (or Einstein's) law makes it, or tells it to.
  The earth goes its own way, and the scientific
  laws are our generalized way of describing how it
  goes. All that they prescribe are our
  expectations.
• D.M. MacKay, The Clockwork Image (Downers Grove
  IVP, 1974), p.31.

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Philosophical Errorsin Relating Science and Faith

• Reductionism (nothing-buttery) The
  misconception that an explanation of a phenomenon
  using the language of a specific field of study
  represents a complete explanation of the
  phenomenon. (e.g. A textbook may be described
  chemically in great detail, but this does not
  completely describe the book!)
• God-of-the-Gaps The misconception that Gods
  activity is restricted to the things which are
  not understood by science.
• God vs Chance The misconception that things
  which occur by chance are not controlled by God
  (Prov. 1633)
• Scientism (often Evolutionism) An anti-religious
  philosophy, extending beyond the realm of
  science, which puts science or nature in the
  place of God. Scientific theories (e.g.
  relativity, quantum mechanics, evolution) are
  often applied out of context in an attempt to
  provide support.
• Catastrophism/Uniformitarianism A historical
  issue for geology.

(partly from The Clockwork Image by Donald M.
MacKay)
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Apologetic Approaches

• Science is wrong
• Science is limited
• Science points toward God

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Invalid Scientific Arguments for a Young Earth
are Based On

• Radioactive Dating
• Second Law of Thermodynamics
• Dust on Moon
• Dinosaur Footprints
• Speed of Light Variation
• Earth's Magnetic Field Decay
• Salinity of Ocean
• Recession of Moon
• Polonium Halos
• Shrinking of Sun
• Etc.

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Recommended Organizations

• American Scientific Affiliation
• http//www.asa3.org/
• Reasons to Believe
• http//www.reasons.org/
• Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute
  (IBRI)
• http//www.ibri.org
• Bible and Science
• http//www.bibleandscience.com/
• Origin Science
• http//www.originscience.com/

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My Background

• PhD Physics, UC Berkeley, 1989
• Designed small cyclotron for radioisotope
  analysis
• Associated with
• Luis Alvarez (dinosaur extinctions)
• Rich Muller (solar companion star theory)
• National Laboratories
• Radiocarbon dating-- LLNL, Livermore CA
• Large particle accelerators--SSC Lab, Dallas TX
  Fermilab, Batavia IL SLAC, Stanford University
• Industry
• Designed small medical accelerators--Siemens
  Medical Systems, Concord CA
• Designed electron microscopes--KLA-Tencor, San
  Jose, CA

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Gods Revelation to Man