What is Science?
Why Should I Care?
The scientific revolution is one of humanity's most important events. It is a philosophical revolution which has accelerated humanity's ability to develop new knowledge, and new technologies, at rapidly increasing rates. The scientific method can be applied to understand the natural world, such as physical forces, chemical reactions, and biological makeups, and also the social world, such as personalities, political organization, production of goods and services, and other cultural phenomena.
This lesson has 4 parts
- Definitions
- What is Casual Research?
- What Do Scientists Do?
- About Bias
What is Science?
In this section, you will learn the difference between approaches in research, to better understand the unique qualities of scientific research as opposed to other types, just as journalistic research, or the work of a research analyst in a large organization.
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Definitions
Culture
Everything produced by humans to enhance the experience of living, including economic production, language, laws and rules of conduct, religious institutions, literature, and art.
Common Sense
A traditional method for building knowledge, based on the experiences of elders, traditions, and beliefs.
Science
A rational method for building knowledge. Based on fact-checking, and logic.
Technology
Applications of traditional and scientific knowledge. Examples of traditional technology: meal recipes, snowshoes, knowledge of medicinal plants. Examples of academic technological fields: engineering, medicine, marketing, finance, accounting, language, math.
Natural Science
The study of the natural world with or without humans. Includes biology, chemistry, and physics.
Humanities
Academic disciplines which are not solely governed, or concerned, by the scientific method. Branches of knowledge devoted to studying human culture using analytical methods, often rooted in reason. Examples: Philosophy, Art History, Media Studies, Gender studies, English Literature, Classics.
Liberal Professions
Professional occupations whose title is protected in law, who must abide by codes of conduct, and who are governed by a professional association (order or bar). Many such professions are technological in nature, such as medical doctors, nurses, veterinarians, dentists, engineers, and architects. Others are born out of the social sciences and humanities, such as accountants, lawyers, clinical psychologists, insurance agents, and financial planners.
Critical Thought
This is a complex idea with many definitions. Here are a few ways of approaching this idea.
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- The ability to determine if a conclusion is sufficiently supported by the underlying premise, and set of logical deductions (reason, deductive logic).
- The ability to use knowledge to sort between valid and invalid information.
- The ability to acknowledge lack of knowledge, and to arbitrage risk and reward in the case of trusting someone else's explanation.
- The ability to identify gaps in knowledge. The ability to discern between beliefs, traditional views, and areas requiring inquiry.
“The ability to deconstruct a statement and determine its possible bias.”
Zohra Bouzitoune, Class of 2015
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What is Casual Research?
What does it mean to do research? A student reading in the library is learning about a new topic. They would say they are doing research. We should differentiate between casual research, documentary research, and scientific research.
Casual research
The use of anecdotal evidence from daily observations to shape beliefs and understandings. This often is in line with what our family learnings, media narratives, and what churches tell us about life. This may be useful but it is not a scientific way to do research.
Documentary research
The use of many types of literature to learn about a topic. Can include library books and journals, newspapers and magazines, websites and video documentaries. This type of research is often part of the scientific process, but it is not sufficient to build scientific knowledge.
Scientific research
The recording and analysis of new observations, which are then compared to prior ideas, and hypothesis-testing. Scientific research entails new data about all sorts of phenomenon. The data and conclusions are then shared publically to encourage criticism and wider understanding of the topic.
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What do scientists do?
Essentially, scientists follow a strict research protocol that ensures the validity of their conclusions. When you choose sources for a research paper, you should be sensitive to the nature of each document. When you cite a scientific paper, you are trusting that the scientists followed this protocol closely. To be considered scientific, a researcher must follow these six principles:
- Be neutral
- Do not accept money from interested parties
- Identify your cultural / personal bias
- Identify the bias of others
- Do not accept money from interested parties
- Review the literature
- Identify what is already known
- Identify what is not yet known
- Use logic
- Establish a logical explanation to the phenomenon
- Write a hypothesis: a relationship between variables
- If it is complicated, build a model with all the variables and their relationships
- Operationalize the variables
- Find a proper method and tool to observe, and measure your variables
- Use an appropriate population sampling technique, preferably random and large.
- Listen to the data
- Organize the observations, look for patterns
- Compare the empirical evidence with contradictory beliefs, prior knowledge
- Don’t modify the results if they don’t fit your hypothesis or preferred outcome
- Communicate the findings and your methodology.
- Be transparent about your method
- Be honest about your data's shortcomings
- List the authors of previous research and how their work contributes to your own
- Share your dataset with anyone who wants to double-check your analysis
- Allow blind reviewers to criticize your work
- Publish your knowledge in a non-profit academic journal
- Present your findings in a scientific conference
- Be transparent about your method
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About Bias
Bias is a tendency to prefer one idea over others. This could be due to many factors.
The first and most obvious bias in research is to be affected by a conflict of interest. There are basically two kinds of conflicts, the first is money. Private interests can be tempted to pay a researcher to modify their study in any way to provide a result that aligns with the interests of the group. This can be the case of a corporation, or an association representing an industry. It can also be the case of a political lobby, social interest group, or religious organization. In any event, scientists should be disinterested, i.e. they should be shielded from financial pressures when designing, conducting, and communicating research.
The second type of conflict is that of appartenance. Belonging to a social group that would benefit from the publication of research results, may have consequences on the scientist's neutrality. This issue needs some nuance. In many cases, appartenance may be a benefit because phenomena may be overlooked by researchers who are not aware of the existence of differences associated to those groups. For example, a scientist belonging to a linguistic group may be better suited to study that group. One way to avoid the appearance of bias is to work in teams of researchers, where each scientist is associated to different groups.
Bias can also arise from the formation of a priori beliefs and preconceptions. This may be due to principles, dogma, and beliefs arising from religion, personal experience, education, and propaganda from advertizing and government publications.
Unfortunately, bias is a very natural phenomenon, because of the decreasing plasticity in the brain as people age. As you can see in the following video, the brain is meant to help you react to your environment and execute complex operations. Eventually, your brain does get “set in its ways.” Adopting new views, and capabilities, can be more difficult with age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0
Are YOU biased about stuff?Language holds bias! For example, in French and English, the same words are often used, but they don't always have the same meanings. Consider the list below.
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Think Piece
Considering that religions have often fought, dismissed, and attacked scientists, do you believe a true scientist could hold personal religious beliefs?
References and Further Reading
Symbaluk, D. (2019) Research Methods, Second Edition: Exploring the Social World in Canadian Contexts. Canadian Scholars.
Tan, W. (2020). Research Methods: A Practical Guide For Students And Researchers. World Scientific.