The Demon -haunted World : Science As A Candle

Within the article titled “The Mistrust of Science” by Atul Gawande, the article is a written document of an address at the California Institute of Technology and describes the connection of science to every single human on Earth. This is done because the presenter defines science as “a systematic way of thinking” since science allows humans to contemplate beyond the information being given to them at any time, such as the questions may follow of how, when, where, why, and how? The presenter states the opinion that, no matter what major you are declared as or the type of occupation you hold, science is embedded into the way you are living, despite you not having any knowledge of certain science topics.

What is Science? When it comes to the word ‘science’ most of the people have some kind of knowledge about science or when they think of it there is some kind of image related to it, a theory, scientific words or scientific research (Beyond Conservation, n.d.). Many different sorts of ideas float into an individual’s mind. Every individual has a different perception about science and how he/she perceives it. It illustrates that each person can identify science in some form. It indicates that the ‘science’ plays a vital role in our everyday lives (Lederman & Tobin, 2002). It seems that everyone can identify science but cannot differentiate it correctly from pseudo-science and non-science (Park, 1986). This essay will address the difference between science, non-science and pseudo-science. Then it will discuss possible responses to the question that what should we do when there is a clash between scientific explanation and non-scientific explanation. Then it will present a brief examination about the correct non-scientific explanation.

I am testing the pseudoscience of haunted houses. In the history of the world there has been multiple reporting’s of haunted houses. The majority of these reporting’s have been about buildings in which tragic or violent events have happened. Locations include old penitentiaries, insane asylums, or houses where murders have occurred. In this experiment I propose a test after all other possible explanations have been canceled out. Such explanations include creepy sounds, unexplained drafts, and the like. These could be due to a leaky pipe, unstable foundations or even people’s own perceptions of things around them.

For this week reading, I had the pleasure to read from the authors Karl Popper, Edward O. Wilson, and Vandana Shiva. Karl Popper, philosopher and author of Science as Falsification, believed the scientific method was made to seem quite easy to be placed yet mistaken due to claims of palm reading or astrology making a status in the field of science. Karl Popper says, " There was a lot of popular nonsense talked about these theories, and especially about relativity (as still happens even today)..."(Popper 338). People don't really question the field of science and theories that are being stated. People go along with what is being stated and not question the theories. A theory or an idea should not be classified as scientific unless proven so

“Part of science is to be taken as significant and expressible within E, and the rest as non-significant and falling outside E. The E portion is subject to attributions of truth and falsehood, belief and evidence, whereas the non-E portion is not. Yet the fictionalist cannot spurn the latter wholly, since he is prepared to admit its functional ‘legitimacy’ and, hence, its interest for the scientist. At most, he can deny it to be either true or false.” (Scheffler 185).

I think that science gives us a more of a reason to wonder and to be even more curious. For example, Jonah was super curious about what important Americas were doing when the first atomic bomb was dropped in Japan. Jonah realized later that what he was actually wanting to know was what was the father of the atomic bomb and his family doing that day. Once he knew what the whole family was doing on that day he wanted to know more about them not really much about the bomb anymore. Then he ended up on a huge journey that led to the end of the world and him being the dictator of this island. That’s really what happens in real life with things that we look for. When we go out looking for answers we usually find an answer to something completely different to our original question. If science were the destruction of wonder once we found the answer to our question we wouldn’t really know what to do with this information we would just have useless information. “Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.” Those people that don’t get anything out of the information they have received tend to become irritated. Many people don’t really know what to do with the information because they don’t want to believe it’s true, and sometimes that’s why people don’t want to learn anything that they aren’t comfortable with.

Extra Credit – BOOK REPORT In the book The Demon Haunted World, the objective of the author is to describe scientific methods to the general public and to motivate individuals to learn skeptical and critical thinking. He describes methods to aid in distinguishing between ideas which science considers valid and the ones which may be regarded pseudoscience. The author asserts that once new ideas are provided for consideration, they must be tested by means of skeptical thinking and must stand up to rigorous questioning. Sagan believes that science is not simply a body of knowledge, but a way of thinking.

Science implies the clarifications of the genuine wonder, which has clear contrasts from the pseudoscience. Nonetheless, it is advantageous to distinguish the science from the pseudoscience.

“Exploration of the stars requires both skepticism and imagination. Skepticism helps distinguish fantasy from fact, but without imagination we go nowhere.” Imagination carries us to worlds that are beyond our reach. It helps fill in the gaps of the blank spots in our head. When we don’t know what something is or how it got there, we make our own explanation. It doesn’t need to be right; it just needs to make sense to us and make us wonder. Sometimes that is better than knowing the actual truth. I believe childlike ignorance is better than facts behind the science.

There has been great debate on whether science should be value-free or not. The value-free ideal view of science states that the scientific internal stages should remain free of non-epistemic values and should only be a factor in the external stages of science (Douglas, ). These internal stages are the selection of different methodologies, choosing which data is useful, and within the interpretation of data (Douglas, ). Non-epistemic values are beliefs, values, and morals, whereas epistemic values are cognitive values focusing on truths, knowledge, and understanding. Rejecting the value-free ideal of science means accepting the risk associated with the rejection or acceptance of a hypothesis because of the non-epistemic values within the

Carl Sagan’s argues for skepticism to be more widely used in a person’s daily life. He leads with an example of buying a used car. He goes on to explain that many people will question the dealer about the quality of the car or bring a mechanically inclined friend along. This opens the audience to the idea that many people are already skeptical of certain situations. People have heard stories that used car salesmen may sell malfunctioning cars and will take precautions when purchasing a car. Skepticism is something that is necessary to our lives, because it can prevent us from making a mistake by not asking questions. Sagan wants that skepticism to spread to other beliefs and ideas. As an example of people or ideas people do not question, Sagan uses commercials. Sagan says that commercials are not meant to be questioned about

Within the last century scientific discovery has been growing at an exponential rate. Evolution, genetics, physics, and chemistry have all greatly affected the way people view the universe and human role in it. Furthermore, the application of scientific discoveries has physically changed society. For example, humans went from being flightless to eighty years later having transportation in super sonic jets available. Rapid scientific change has caused many issues surrounding morality and science to arise. The idea behind the skepticism is that just because something can be done doesnt mean it should be. Nuclear weapons, biological weapons, and cloning have all fallen under fire due to this concept. People worry that

Over the period of time science has become a major part of everyones lives (directly or through its applications) and people tend to believe on anything by science. These also include critical areas like : Healthcare, Expert Testimony, Environmental Policies, Science Education. Hence people need to be protected from fraudulent science.

As people, we come with earlier knowledge and understandings on subjects and topics of study, “Science” being one of them. We make presumptions, based on either reasonable evidence or that our thoughts and ideas are known as true by others. Through this we have come to understand and define science as its aims, leaving its definition, whether consciously or unconsciously, unchallenged. We have taken advantage of the label that we have set for science, as well as its goals, and failed to look at them further.

The nature and process of science are a collection of things, ideas, and guidelines. “The purpose of science is to learn about and understand our universe more completely” (Science works in specific ways, 3). Science works with evidence from our world. If it doesn’t come from the natural world, it isn’t science. You need to be creative and have flexible thoughts and ideas if you want to be a scientist. Science always brings up new ideas and theories and if you aren’t flexible to those ideas you can’t be a scientist. Science has been in our world for a long time. It is deep into our history and our cultures. The principals of science; are all about understanding our world using the evidence we collect. If we can’t collect evidence on something we simply cannot understand it. If we don’t understanding something about our world, science says that we can learn about it by collecting evidence (Science has principals, 4). Science is a process; it takes time. You don’t immediately come to a conclusion for your hypothesis a few minutes