Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Alson lamp and the science editor how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And uh, we've got
Speaker 1: two pretty big podcasts here that are looped together. Basically,
Speaker 1: we want to talk about the scientific method. It's been requested, um,
Speaker 1: but before we can really talk about scientific method, we
Speaker 1: really need to talk about what science is. And that's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna be talking about today. Yeah. So so, yeah,
Speaker 1: like what what comes to mind when most people think
Speaker 1: of science? Do you think lab coats? Yeah, you know, um,
Speaker 1: potions that are bubbling explosions, Frankenstein, I'm pree associating here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it often there's often this kind of magical view of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that it's just kind of it's kind of like modern magic.
Speaker 1: And certainly, you know, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
Speaker 1: from magic. Right, Um, who said that? Who said that?
Speaker 1: It was Clark? Yeah and maybe wrong and you know
Speaker 1: you did he did it? Was? It was it was
Speaker 1: Arthur Clark. Okay, it's actually in that quiz. I did
Speaker 1: the quiz on who said it's Sagan or Creighton and
Speaker 1: then threw in some extra quotes to throw people off. Um.
Speaker 1: But but anyway, yes, science gets uh, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that exists, and it's so big and it's
Speaker 1: just around is everywhere. You often often it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to put a finger on exactly what it is,
Speaker 1: you know, and defining it helps people to understand it. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that science can get caught up in, you know,
Speaker 1: as a massive entity, kind of like the media. The
Speaker 1: media are doing the scientists are doing that, whereas scientists
Speaker 1: are carrying out very disparate experiments on very interesting but
Speaker 1: you know, separate causes on everything in the universe, every
Speaker 1: thing that's going on in the natural world. So a
Speaker 1: bit of a mistake to lump everybody together and to
Speaker 1: generalize science. But there are some core concepts that link
Speaker 1: science together. Yeah, now, now that is some of these
Speaker 1: quotes like what is the Oxford American Dictionary science is? Oh,
Speaker 1: start off with a really interesting one. First, science is
Speaker 1: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the structure and behavior
Speaker 1: of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's pretty straightforward. It's it's kind of wordy,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't think it gets at the excitement
Speaker 1: behind science or the discovery, yeah, or or just like
Speaker 1: the power and importance. That's why I really like how
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan referred to it as a candle in the dark,
Speaker 1: as a truth that illuminates the quote demon haunted world.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, this thing that extinguishes superstition and shinds
Speaker 1: a light into the dark, explains unknowns, you know. And
Speaker 1: it's I tend to like those definitions that see it
Speaker 1: as this kind of like expanding thing that's bigger than
Speaker 1: all of us, you know, like um, And in thinking
Speaker 1: this over before we went in, I kept thinking about
Speaker 1: about how it kind of amounts to a kind of
Speaker 1: communal intelligence. Yeah. Yeah, because like like even our most
Speaker 1: gifted minds can only perceive and accomplish so much, right,
Speaker 1: we come up against this thing called cognitive closure, like
Speaker 1: the limits of the human mind to understand the universe. Um,
Speaker 1: but if you have minds working in concert with each other,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have minds picking up where others
Speaker 1: left off, standing on the shoulders of giants as who
Speaker 1: has it's Sir Isaac Newton put it in moving forward
Speaker 1: with this some systematic precision, you know, then it just
Speaker 1: expands the limits on what science can accomplish. And it really,
Speaker 1: I truly believe it. You know, it becomes something that's
Speaker 1: bigger than all of us, something that you know, it's
Speaker 1: and that's not scary. That's something that we should be
Speaker 1: proud of. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it can be kind
Speaker 1: of scary if you think of it the wrong way.
Speaker 1: But no, I think in general, it's like it's the Yeah,
Speaker 1: on one hand, it's what makes the humans great, but
Speaker 1: it has empowered humans to do some pretty horrible things.
Speaker 1: But but but either way, it's it's certainly like one
Speaker 1: of the, if not the greatest, things about humanity. So
Speaker 1: let's round at this section with a couple of quotes
Speaker 1: that I really need to get out here. So there's
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde weighing in on science and he says science
Speaker 1: is the record of dead religions. Yeah. And then there's
Speaker 1: MLK Jr. Who says that science investigates religion, interprets, science
Speaker 1: investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power,
Speaker 1: religion gives man wisdom, which is controlled. It's pretty good line.
Speaker 1: And then of course Einstein, who says, well, science is
Speaker 1: a wonderful thing. If one does not have to earn
Speaker 1: one's living at it, then em bode well for us,
Speaker 1: does it, especially for one of the sciences brightest minds,
Speaker 1: rock stars, so to speak. So let's get into some
Speaker 1: of these core concepts that define science. Okay, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is coming from a wonderful article actually on scientific
Speaker 1: method by William Harris. Yes are our freelancer extraordinaire. And
Speaker 1: and it's there was an old science teacher, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which comes across in his writing. I think, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I I mean, as a science teacher, he's constantly like
Speaker 1: taking scientific things, breaking it down for for an audience
Speaker 1: that may not be all that receptive at times, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, comes across in the article and it's
Speaker 1: a really good one, well worth the checking out. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll just he divided up and do I
Speaker 1: think seven parts like seven sort of um you know,
Speaker 1: core statements that define what what science is. And I
Speaker 1: thought it worked just really well on the page, so
Speaker 1: we would would stick to that format here in the
Speaker 1: podcast Practicality. Yeah, that's our first one. Let's just throw
Speaker 1: it out there. Science is practical and you might think
Speaker 1: of this, you know, as learning from textbooks, you know,
Speaker 1: hearing a teacher speak, a professor lecture on some subject.
Speaker 1: But really it's focused on discovery, and it's discoveries that active,
Speaker 1: hands on process. It's not something you know, that's just
Speaker 1: isolated to certain scholars tinkering with you know, GC mass
Speaker 1: spec and wondering what they're going to find. It's it's
Speaker 1: all sorts of people in the lab. Yeah, yeah, people
Speaker 1: who practice science for the most part. It's not done
Speaker 1: just because of some sort of love of abstraction or something.
Speaker 1: It's it's you know, what can we what can we get?
Speaker 1: Will ask some some reasonable questions about the world, and
Speaker 1: then let's find a way to answer them. And I
Speaker 1: should mention that, of course we do think of scientists
Speaker 1: being in the lab, but they're very much in the
Speaker 1: field too. Yeah, like the lab is important as what
Speaker 1: we'll get to when we start talking about the actual
Speaker 1: methods you know involved. But but yeah, science, science is
Speaker 1: out there. It's not disconnected from the world. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a search for information. It's this really this journey, this
Speaker 1: quest to explain how information fits together in meaningful ways, right, right,
Speaker 1: you know, you get the UM, the guys, the theoretical
Speaker 1: physicists out there, and then you get all of Einstein's
Speaker 1: adherents and they're we're out there working to solve that
Speaker 1: big old physics mystery. Yeah, so let's let's hit up
Speaker 1: point number two, and that is science is based on observation.
Speaker 1: And this is key. It's not again, it's not just
Speaker 1: guys in every tower going I bet frogs do such
Speaker 1: and such because of X. No, it's like people going out,
Speaker 1: let's observe frogs. Let's see what the frog does. Now,
Speaker 1: let's see I the frog does it again. Let's then
Speaker 1: let's see if the frog does it again. And then
Speaker 1: let's see what the if the frog does it again
Speaker 1: under different circumstances, etcetera. You know, it's it's about observing, right,
Speaker 1: and as you get at UM, it's it's about replication
Speaker 1: as well. You know, it's about talking to your colleagues. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is what I noticed this particular species of frog
Speaker 1: could do. And the colleagues says, oh, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about that. Maybe I'll try that experiment, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll replicate what you did, or maybe I won't replicate
Speaker 1: what you did, maybe my results will be different, maybe
Speaker 1: we'll need to take this in a new direction. And
Speaker 1: that's another big thing. Um, when we were researching this podcast,
Speaker 1: it comes across I think that people can get very
Speaker 1: tied up in science pedantic and following these steps and
Speaker 1: sure we are going through these different parts of science
Speaker 1: and what defines science. But science is creative. Science is innovative. Yes,
Speaker 1: it does have core concepts, but nothing set in stone, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that science has has often involved, you know,
Speaker 1: making new discoveries that change centuries old um laws say,
Speaker 1: especially pretending to physics. You know, Newton came I mean
Speaker 1: not Einstein came along and uh, and he changed the
Speaker 1: things that Newton had proposed that had stood the test
Speaker 1: of time. It's also important to note that when we're
Speaker 1: talking about science, we as a society inform what's going on,
Speaker 1: what investigations are being carried out. You know, is there
Speaker 1: an outbreak of Westnile virus, then yes, people are going
Speaker 1: to be concerned and there will be research port into
Speaker 1: investigating the pathology of West Nile virus and uh. And
Speaker 1: that kind of leads into point number three, and that
Speaker 1: is that data reveals the structure of something. What is
Speaker 1: the thing that we're studying, the West nol virus or
Speaker 1: a star or you know, you name it. And that
Speaker 1: often means breaking down into quantitative data. That means describing
Speaker 1: an object numerically um and uh in using some sort
Speaker 1: of like a unit of measurement, so you know it's
Speaker 1: like girl, yeah, or you know, or just miles per hour,
Speaker 1: you know, something as simple as that. You know, we're
Speaker 1: breaking we're getting a unit out and then we're busting
Speaker 1: out some numbers on it and we're quantifying it. But
Speaker 1: quantitative data isn't everything. There's also qualitative data and and
Speaker 1: that can be a little bit trickier to interpret, a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a time suck to gather. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is point four. But yeah, data can also reveal behavior. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know when you're talking about qualitative data, you're
Speaker 1: really talking about that something that's a written description about
Speaker 1: an object or an organism. It compliments quantitative data. You know,
Speaker 1: it tells you, it gives you really the complete picture.
Speaker 1: You know, what is it made of and how does
Speaker 1: it behave? Yeah, yeah, this is yeah, it really revolves
Speaker 1: around behavior. So it's like, um, we we know what
Speaker 1: the frog looks like we've cut it open, we've seen
Speaker 1: all the insides, but what's it doing? How does it behave?
Speaker 1: Or you know, or just something simple were not as simple,
Speaker 1: but something like light for instance, you know, breaking down
Speaker 1: what light is and then how light behaves in the universe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so science is also in intellectual pursuit. Yeah, at this
Speaker 1: point number five that that Mr Harris makes and this
Speaker 1: is just making observation. Collecting data are not the ultimate goals.
Speaker 1: Data must be analyzed and used to understand the world
Speaker 1: around us. A data point is only that it's just
Speaker 1: a data point. It takes you, the scientists, to infer
Speaker 1: and draw conclusions and uh, take your research in a
Speaker 1: new direction based on what you find. Right again, and
Speaker 1: this is important to derive generalizations based on specific observations.
Speaker 1: Oh here's here. I like you, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have been in this boat. All right,
Speaker 1: So my cat, biscuit, if you're listening, you know, here's
Speaker 1: a shout out, Hey biscuit, she's not listening. Should never
Speaker 1: listened to any podcast totally. She just doesn't even playing
Speaker 1: in the house when you're gone. No, but I mean
Speaker 1: I asked her about her and she's just like you know.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so so what what is she doing if
Speaker 1: she's not listening to her podcast? Well that instead of
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast, she spends her days like climbing
Speaker 1: up next to the window and doing like a lot
Speaker 1: of cats meeting at birds? What is what do you
Speaker 1: mean by It's not exactly meeting, it's more like, you know,
Speaker 1: they kind of make this little noise that the birds,
Speaker 1: which you know, and you know, and my wife and
Speaker 1: I said around discussing and we're like, well, what does
Speaker 1: it mean? Is she's saying I would eat you if
Speaker 1: there was not glass here, or she's saying I want
Speaker 1: to go to their you know what she saying, I
Speaker 1: want to go to there. Yeah, we didn't mention the
Speaker 1: meat in our how Cats Work article? Did they not?
Speaker 1: I don't think they mentioned the meat. Well that's the
Speaker 1: weird thing because like I have always have a heart.
Speaker 1: That's like a whole different podcast because I can never
Speaker 1: find like really good solid data as to want cats
Speaker 1: do any of the things they do. Um, but anyway,
Speaker 1: so the cats meeting at birch right, so, um, maybe
Speaker 1: all cats meet theater? Do all cats make at birth?
Speaker 1: That's a generalization. And then that would be the generalization
Speaker 1: that one would would investigate. So Edwin hubbell Um, the
Speaker 1: great man behind the Hubble Shift, he observed what he
Speaker 1: thought were a nebula speeding away from what was thought
Speaker 1: to be the universe's only galaxy. Okay, what kind of
Speaker 1: generalization did he get from that? Well, he said, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the universe is made of millions of galaxies and
Speaker 1: all of them are moving away from each other as
Speaker 1: the universe expanded, and and and that was the starting
Speaker 1: point for our under a lot of our current understanding
Speaker 1: of the universe. Right. So hubbles observation, of course, drew
Speaker 1: much more research. And it kind of gets at the
Speaker 1: quote that we put in here as a nice little
Speaker 1: uh close it out on this point by George Bernard Shaw.
Speaker 1: Science it never solves a problem without creating ten more.
Speaker 1: YEA and I. And it seems like you you have kids,
Speaker 1: So I imagine are they they age yet where they
Speaker 1: ask question after question after questions. Okay, so it seems
Speaker 1: like the same thing, right, It's like they ask a question,
Speaker 1: you answered and that stirs you know, numerous other questions. Yes,
Speaker 1: there is an unlimited line of inquiry with children. Well,
Speaker 1: the one who can talk and they do they tend
Speaker 1: Because that's the other thing too, is like the questions.
Speaker 1: Science is about questions getting deeper to right, Like sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean definitely. You think about a child's reasoning. Okay,
Speaker 1: so here might be an exchange. Um, you ask me
Speaker 1: we have to go take a bath now, and the
Speaker 1: kid goes, why don't we have to go ahead in bath? Well,
Speaker 1: because you know, you played outside today and you got dirty.
Speaker 1: And then the kid asked, why did I get dirty? Well,
Speaker 1: you know there's a lot of different Wise, I don't
Speaker 1: know that she's ever asked why am I dirty? But
Speaker 1: it does. Yeah, it just gets deeper and deeper, and
Speaker 1: pretty soon you're you know, tackling these huge questions of
Speaker 1: you know, religion and science, and like it starts off
Speaker 1: to take a bath, and then eventually it's like what
Speaker 1: is time? Mother? And like I don't know, here's the
Speaker 1: shampo go for speaking of time, You're going time out
Speaker 1: unless you get in the bath now. So let's keep
Speaker 1: moving on. Yeah, So moving on to point six, And
Speaker 1: that's that science makes predictions and here's the thing, and
Speaker 1: then then test those predictions using experiments. So like generalizations
Speaker 1: are great, Yeah, and they enable us, but they enables
Speaker 1: to make those predictions and then test them. And that's key.
Speaker 1: Like like, if I was to, uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: generalization about all cats meeting at birds, um, I would
Speaker 1: you know, if I were gonna investigate that, I would
Speaker 1: want to, you know, put it to the test um, Like,
Speaker 1: get a whole bunch of cats together, put them through
Speaker 1: a rigorous testing to see how they respond to birds
Speaker 1: on the other side of glass. You know, which one's
Speaker 1: meat at at birds on this side of glass, which
Speaker 1: one's meat at moths, which one you know, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And you would have to like you and then quantify
Speaker 1: all the data, and you have to control for all
Speaker 1: the interesting variables going on. There Are there some long
Speaker 1: haired cats in the mix, Are there some katies and
Speaker 1: some old cat Are some of the cats missing their
Speaker 1: eyes so perhaps they don't see the bird? Are they
Speaker 1: meeting a different birds? Are all sorts of ways you
Speaker 1: could set up this experiment which would probably draw more
Speaker 1: experiments and more funding. Cool, Okay, And then finally point
Speaker 1: seven science is systematic. Yeah, if you want to check
Speaker 1: out why cats are meeting at birds, you really got
Speaker 1: to make it systematic. Otherwise no one's going to take
Speaker 1: you credibly. It's kind of like going back to the
Speaker 1: like scientists is ever expanding thing. I like that. I
Speaker 1: sometimes like to think of it in terms of, say,
Speaker 1: like imagine an army on a battlefield and they're going
Speaker 1: to say, take this next hill, you know, or achieve
Speaker 1: this next tactical victory. They like point to the place
Speaker 1: on the map. It's like, all right, we're going to
Speaker 1: we're going to take this area. And then they have
Speaker 1: to sit down and figure out strategy. Right, how do
Speaker 1: we take that area? You know? How do you We
Speaker 1: can't just march out into it. You can have to
Speaker 1: have a plan and uh. And that's part of the
Speaker 1: systematic aspect of science. Like science is like a finely
Speaker 1: tuned army, you know, And it's with ever changing tactics,
Speaker 1: ever changing tactics. You know. Well some some core tactics
Speaker 1: that remained us sitting the same, which we're going to
Speaker 1: get to in the next in the in the next
Speaker 1: podcast scientific methods. Okay, the tactics can change, but some
Speaker 1: remain true form. But also I mean goals differ, of course,
Speaker 1: the laws change. Yeah. I like your battlefield experiment. I'll
Speaker 1: give it to you. That's one of my more favorite analogies.
Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't fall aparties quickly with some of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about how all these parts fit together in the
Speaker 1: scientific method for our next podcast, So be sure to
Speaker 1: listen in as we get into, uh what the scientific
Speaker 1: method is. And I bet you guys probably have a
Speaker 1: good idea. And we will also be taking you through
Speaker 1: a little experiment that we devised on our own involving
Speaker 1: perhaps some putting pops and somebody's stealing them. We'll see
Speaker 1: you tune in next time. Yeah, And if you guys
Speaker 1: have a favorite science quote that you want to share
Speaker 1: with us, be sure to send it to us at
Speaker 1: science stuff at how stuff works dot com. And if
Speaker 1: you want to go over to the site and check
Speaker 1: out Bill Harris's article on scientific method, go ahead and
Speaker 1: do that too. Thanks for listening for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
Speaker 1: blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.