Devin's+Week+1+Response

Dr. Hawles is questioning the very foundation of what we know and have come to believe about science. it is true that some of the generalizations we learn and are taught about science are incorrect, but that doesn’t mean that no one understands science. Dr. Halwes is trying to claim that we don’t understand science because of it’s many facets, but that within each facet there are things we do understand. That outlook shortchanges the value and accomplishments science has achieved. If we assume that we don’t understand science, itself, then that would still have little or no bearing on what science has done for us. Is it really necessary for us to understand science in order to use it and its applications to help us solve our problems?

Dr. Halwes sites learning and understand as examples of why we don’t understand science itself. “We don't even really understand how babies learn to walk, much less how they learn to talk and to solve problems. We are just beginning to really understand how anybody learns anything, communicates with anyone else about anything, or accomplishes any sort of accurate reasoning.” That is not entirely accurate. We have theories about how babies learn to walk and talk. We have a very solid understanding of how one learns and how one begins to figure out problem skills. We know that visualization and repetition are key to a child’s development. Dr. Halwes is overlooking sever strides we have made in the many fields of science. We discover new things and change our theories on things through our understanding of science. Even if we wanted to “understand” science, how would we go about doing that? Dr. Hawles seems to think that we just see science as some amazing tool to get to answers without knowing exactly how we got to those answers. When we delve into the specifics of how we got to those answers, we must then specialize the field of science that helps solve our problem. I would like to ask Dr. Halwes just how are we supposed to study science without studying a more specific field?