Karina+Week+1

Summary and Response of and to __Dispelling Some Common Myths about Science__ by Dr. Terry Halwes

Dr. Halwes begins with stating that there are many myths and misconceptions about science that are widely believed and that are detrimental to a true understanding of science. He adds that many people do not even question the concepts of science and believe it because they are told, maybe from a teacher or from the media, and I quote, "In fact, very little scientific research on how science works has ever been done. That leaves plenty of room for over generalization, speculation, and outright nonsense." This point is a good one, because students are taught in schools (mainly high schools because students start doing labs there which involve theories) to accept the scientific law on a sort of faith without question. It is a common theme is both education and in general information accessable to most people. Regarding the media spreading inaccurate information, I agree to some degree yet it is a commercial world where the objective is to attract an audience, not to be completely accurate.

Dr. Halwes's next discussion point introduces what he calls the "Myth of Magical Science", of which there are three parts. One myth is that //scientific knowledge is a special and superior "type" of knowledge//. The second myth is that //there is a superior way of evaluating and experimenting called the Scientific Method// and the third myth states that //scientific knowledge can only be discovered or improved upon by professional scientists//. He also adds other myths that include that scientists are always unbiased and objective, and that all scientific knowledge is true and testable. For puposes of making the discussion easier, I will divide the next section into four parts.

In myth one, scientific knowledge is a separate "type" of knowledge that is better than any other kind of knowledge. However, the logical reasoning aspect, the attentiveness aspect and especially the researching aspect where one reads and thinks about a problem are not new "types" of knowledge, as Dr. Halwes points out in this sentence. "What is required for scientific progress is mainly ordinary curiosity, ordinary awareness, ordinary leaning, ordinary reasoning, and fairly ordinary communication." Anyone with a keen eye and a questioning mind knows this because all the qualities Dr. Halwes mentions are not new knowledge to them. A simple observation is all that is necessary is some situations. Scientists are not some race of superhumans that have access to higher levels of thinking, but are ordinary people who use to skills that anyone else would use and apply them to specific questions in a lab or research settings to solve problems.

In myth two, a special method called the Scientific Method is used by scientists and scientists only. But just as scientific knowledge is not a new "type" of knowledge, the magical Scientific Method is just the outline scientists use (which was derived from ordinary methods and standards of evidence) to expand knowledge. Again, there is no special method that is unique to science or to any special type of person, which brings us to myth three.

In myth three, scientific knowledge can only be developed by professional scientists. However, Dr. Halwes makes a good point when he says that the background knowledge that we all take for granted was not created by scientists. "Our ancestors, human and non human, have had hundreds of millions of years of biological and social (cultural) evolution for working on getting these things right." The foundation that "science" is built upon occured before the invention of what is known as modern science, yet it is still used and accepted. Because all people are capable of learning and can be assumed to have some logical deduction skills and bit of curiousity, they can effectively act as scientists do. Advancement of scientific knowledge is a collaboration of professional scientists and non scientists who apply the same techniques but in different settings.

The last group of myths that Dr. Halwes addresses are that scientists are always objective and unbiased...but as was discussed before, scienctists are ordinary people and ordinary people are certainly not always objective and unbiased. He also states that it is a myth that all scientific knowledge is true (which we know is not that case because ideas and theories are constaintly being improved upon or discarded all together), and that it is also a myth that science or more specificly scientific knowledge (mainly theories) are always testable. His last point I disagree with because science is limited to what is testable in the environment, so theories are always testable. That is one of the definitions of a scientific theory. Science can make predictions based on what is already knowledge about something, but that is not a theory because it can't be physically tested. In the realm of theology for example, science is utterly useless because everthing there is taken on faith with no solid evidence to examine in a lab. There are no physical aspects of the gods to stick a needle in to measure amino acid sequences or to do any sort of varifying experiement on, so science can make no real theories other than saying that there is no evidence that they can see or examine.

Dr. Halwes's last statement recommends that we give up the goal of seeking "truth" as the ultimate objective of science and replace it with "continually improving understanding". This I also disagree with because eventually continually improving understanding leads towards truth about the universe. With each new and improved theory, science gets closer and closer to a truth about the world, so while "continually improving understanding" can be seen as a perpetual goal, "truth" is the ultimate goal of science.