The nature of science

• All of the principles here are open to question. You may change your mind as you learn more, but they work as a basis to invent, make and explain things.

• Science works well because everything is open to question. There is no room in the principles of science for notions of dogma, heresy or political correctness.

• The secret of real science is that things have a cause, they just don't happen, and causes are limited by some neat laws about conservation of mass and energy.

• Energy does not appear out of nowhere, it has to exist and be transferred, and energy only travels in one direction: from high to low, never the other way.

• In some cases, energy may appear to flow the other way, as when a refrigerator gets cold, but that is because energy has been used to move other energy.

• Matter is made up of atoms that link together, and it normally takes an application of energy to change those linkages and rearrange the atoms a new way.

• In all sorts of chemistry, in test tubes, in industry, in rocks and in living things, the products always weigh the same as the original ingredients.

• Science depends on an acceptance of the causality principle, that there is a necessary and sufficient cause for everything. Science is about seeking causes.

• The only reliable knowledge comes when you test everything, but even then do not assume you know the complete story. Usually, the simplest explanation is best.

• If scientists find that a fact does not fit their favorite theories, and they are unable to disprove the fact, there is no choice: the theories have to go.

• Around 1330, William of Ockham proposed what we now call 'Ockham's razor', which basically says that given two explanations, the simpler one is a better one.

• Scientists reserve the right to reject any claim that is made which does not appear to be backed by evidence and an acceptable and rigorous scientific proof.

• The explanation of an observation that we accept today may be discarded in the future when we learn more, and realize that it is not consistent with the facts.

• Science is made up of a set of mutually consistent ideas, generalizations and principles. Changing any one will usually mean having to (at least) adjust others.

• The beauty of science is that what we learn in one branch of science may be applied in other branches: if the branches are inconsistent, something must change.

• You cannot just throw out ideas you don't like. To discard any idea in science, including these principles, you need evidence from a controlled experiment.

• The controlled experiment lies at the very center of the scientific method. To work, it must involve a knowledge of current theories and likely causes.

• If a controlled experiment is to work, it must either deliver results that can be measured in some reliable way, or it must deliver an unequivocal response.

• Because it is not always clear what evidence is most relevant, it is possible for scientists to disagree, for the time being. In the end, they usually agree.

• Around 320, Lactantius, the 'Christian Cicero', showed by rigorous logic that the Earth did not have antipodes. This was later used to prove the world was flat.

• In 1800 Georg Hegel wrote a dissertation to show that seven planets was a necessity of nature, a year before the first asteroid is discovered.

• As a general rule, proof by logical argument is not all that useful in science, since it is possible to start with false premises and reach wrong answers.

• While it is uncommon to prove the truth of something in science, it is possible to test certain assumptions by what is known today as a thought experiment.

• Thought experiments do not actually prove something to be right or wrong (though they may suggest it). They can sometimes point the way for further enquiries.

• Michael Faraday used lines of force to explain the effects of magnetic fields in a concrete way, and we continue to use the notion, but there are no such lines.

• One of the curious features of science is that so much of it is counter-intuitive, going against what we expect, based on what we can see, looking around us.

• To the unscientific eye, the Earth is flat, the Sun moves around the planet, things stop if they are not pushed, and evolution does not happen as we watch.

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This file is http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/scifun/splatsci.htm, first created on July 24, 2004. Last recorded revision (well I get lazy and forget sometimes!) was on February 16, 2008.