Unit 5: The Principal Elements of the Nature of Science: Dispelling the Myths.

True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.

Claude Bernard

WARM-UP

1. Discuss the following questions in small groups.

1. What is science?

2. What is the role of science?

3. Does science have limits?

4. What is the difference between inventions and discoveries?

5. What are the most important inventions and discoveries over history?

2. Test yourself. Which of these are inventions, and which are discoveries?

Air conditioning (1902), the theory of relativity (1915), Kepler's laws (1609), audiotape (1928), cosmic microwave background radiation (1964), automated teller machine (ATM) (1968), barometer (1643), proton (1919), compact disc (CD) (1980), etheric force (1875).

Inventions:

Discoveries:

3. Give definitions to the words.

soil, solution, cat, bacterium, atmosphere, joy, language, mobile phone, balance, society, key

4. Comment on a science checklist.

Science checklist: How scientific is it? Science .....

• Focuses on the natural world

• Aims to explain the natural world

• Uses testable ideas

• Relies on evidence

• Involves the scientific community

• Leads to ongoing research

• Benefits from scientific behavior

5. Do you agree or disagree with the quotations?

1. "Science is the systematic classification of experience." George Henry Lewes

2. "Science is the desire to know causes." William Hazlitt 

3. "Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride." Claude Bernard

4. "Innocence about Science is the worst crime today." Sir Charles Percy Snow

5. "Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought." Albert Szent-Györgi 

6. "It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts." Sherlock Holmes

7. "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility." Albert Einstein 

8. "You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself." Galileo Galilei

READING

6. Underline the stressed sound in each word as in the example. Practise reading.

virtually, accurately, orchestrated, experiments, experimentation, techniques, observations, misconception, hallmarks, laboratories, crucial

7. Read the text "The principal elements of the nature of science: dispelling the myths". Four sentences have been removed from the text. Choose from sentences A-E the one which fits each gap (1-5).

   	This funding relationship is not necessarily damaging, but the freedom experienced by the pure scientists of the Victorian age is long gone.
   	Copernicus and Kepler changed our view of the solar system using observational evidence derived from lengthy and detailed observations frequently contributed by other scientists, but neither performed experiments.
   	Usually experiments have as a primary goal the establishment of a cause and effect relationship.
   	Scientists work in research teams within a community of like-minded investigators.
   	The pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone is called pure science while its exploitation in the production of a commercial product is applied science or technology.

8. Answer the following questions.

1. What is involved in true experiments?

2. How is science connected with experimentation?

3. Does every science need experimental cofirmation?

4. Are science and technology the same?

5. Is science a solitary pursuit? Give your reasons and examples.