Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Chuck here, continuing our journey down the science trail.
Speaker 1: Here we are with I Bleeve, Episode seven on the
Speaker 1: list How the Scientific Method Works. Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 2: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Why you grinning?
Speaker 2: It's been a while.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: It's funny, Like those words come pouring out of my mouth, didn't.
Speaker 1: It's cool you wake up in the middle of the
Speaker 1: night saying that and give me like slugged you in
Speaker 1: the face.
Speaker 2: Right, She's like, go ahead, sleep, she has to dry
Speaker 2: my brow.
Speaker 1: Yes, we pre recorded some for December, as we like
Speaker 1: to do to take a little time off at the
Speaker 1: end of the year and not explain things for a
Speaker 1: few weeks in our real lives. It's nice, like people
Speaker 1: ask me.
Speaker 2: Things like what happened to that stick of butter?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, don't act.
Speaker 2: Don't even ask me.
Speaker 1: I could tell you, yeah, but I'm not gonna exactly.
Speaker 1: That's how it goes in my house. Find your own butter, right,
Speaker 1: December was find your Own Butter month.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good's that's a good one.
Speaker 1: That should be a T shirt. Yes, stuff you should
Speaker 1: know find your own butter.
Speaker 2: Or December is find your own Butter month. Yeah that's right.
Speaker 2: Maybe a stick of butter is some Garland on it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: So, uh, it's good to see you again, man, Good
Speaker 1: to be back in here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is nice to be back because as much as.
Speaker 1: The break was great, I'm happy to be explaining things again.
Speaker 2: Well that's good because if we got in here and
Speaker 2: you're like, I can't do this, I can't do it again.
Speaker 1: We'd be in trouble.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So I'm glad we're all feeling good. Jerry,
Speaker 2: you feeling good. Jerry's got two thumbs up in a
Speaker 2: big goofy smile, two of.
Speaker 1: Her three thumbs.
Speaker 2: She looks like Bob from that male enhancement pill add Oh.
Speaker 1: See the guy, the old man that's like super buff.
Speaker 2: I would call him old. He was middle aged. He
Speaker 2: looked like kind of a Bob Dobbs type of dude.
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of who he was modeled to.
Speaker 1: See the guy that's super muscling. Now, I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: someone different.
Speaker 2: I think are you're thinking of Jack Llane.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, just there's some ad. There's some
Speaker 1: old man that looks like really creepy because from the
Speaker 1: next time super like buff he looks like a twenty
Speaker 1: five year old. No.
Speaker 2: Remember, there was like a mail enhancement pill and I'm
Speaker 2: making air quotes here.
Speaker 1: For a rectalle dysfunction.
Speaker 2: Oh well, there go the air quotes. But yes, And
Speaker 2: it was like in the early two thousands. I think,
Speaker 2: uh huh, maybe late nineties, but I think early two thousands,
Speaker 2: and these ads were everywhere, and there was Bob and
Speaker 2: like all these great things happened to him because he
Speaker 2: started taking this pill. I can't remember the name of
Speaker 2: the pill. But the company got into a lot of
Speaker 2: trouble because it was basically like a subscription service and
Speaker 2: like you gave him your credit card and you got
Speaker 2: this free trial, but then they started sending it to
Speaker 2: you and it was like next to impossible to cut
Speaker 2: off service.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: They were like, no, we want your mailness to be enhanced.
Speaker 2: So you've seen these ads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna start asking questions, but why bother.
Speaker 2: I will a YouTube. I will find it on YouTube.
Speaker 2: I'll be like, oh, Bob, yeah you will, You'll go oh,
Speaker 2: I won't have to come back in and record an
Speaker 2: insert right.
Speaker 1: The guy that's in the back of all those pill
Speaker 1: bottles in my bathroom, so chuck.
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't even remember how we got Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: Jerry did that. That was Jerry's fault. But you remember
Speaker 2: we did the Enlightenment episode. Yeah, okay, we talked a
Speaker 2: lot about how there's this kind of tug of war
Speaker 2: over the human psyche, sure, between rationalism and mysticism. I
Speaker 2: guess you could you could put it. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 2: feel like we're talking today about the scientific method.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great idea.
Speaker 2: By the way, thank you very much. It's been a
Speaker 2: long time coming. Yeah, because I realized, like I don't
Speaker 2: understand it as fully as I don't understand science. I
Speaker 2: understand the scientific method because it's pretty cut and dry
Speaker 2: and it's beautiful and elegant and simple. But then you
Speaker 2: just take this thing and it came out of the
Speaker 2: birth rationalism. Yeah, and when you place it into the
Speaker 2: world and make it function, there's a lot of implications. Yeah,
Speaker 2: is it being used properly? Is it being used responsibly?
Speaker 2: Like are we putting what constitutes faith into that? You know,
Speaker 2: like it just raises all this other stuff, and it
Speaker 2: made me realize, like I don't understand science as much
Speaker 2: as I want to, So researching this it was awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is a cool episode, I think, because
Speaker 1: not only are we going to talk about the scientific method,
Speaker 1: but we're going to talk about just science, like what
Speaker 1: is science in general? And some of the rock stars
Speaker 1: along the way who really you know, laid out the
Speaker 1: path remarkably and like many many years ago, right like
Speaker 1: coming up with these amazing discoveries that still like hold
Speaker 1: you know, you can like hold their feet to the
Speaker 1: fire for a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if you come upon a universal truth, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know it is what it is, like you got
Speaker 2: to be the person who discovered it because you know,
Speaker 2: you saw it, you realized it a certain way. But
Speaker 2: ultimately he was there already.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Newton. I mean, we'll talk about all this stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's not like now we're like, oh Newton, most
Speaker 1: of what he said was wrong, But that's understandable because
Speaker 1: it was a long time ago. Like his stuff holds
Speaker 1: up really really well.
Speaker 2: I was wondering if he on his deathbed was just like,
Speaker 2: oh man, I contributed so much to humanity. It's mind boggling.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't enhance my mailhood.
Speaker 2: Well, Bob hadn't come along yet, so check. Let's just
Speaker 2: quit stalling and talk about science, Like what is science?
Speaker 1: Well, I hate the old elementary school defined as but
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good place to start here to get
Speaker 1: a base definition of science.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Old William Harris did a great job with this.
Speaker 1: Yes, William Harris did a great job. Yeah, he did
Speaker 1: science the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the structure and
Speaker 1: behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experimentation.
Speaker 2: Boom, end of podcast.
Speaker 1: So the first part of that is science is practical
Speaker 1: and it is you know, they make a good he makes.
Speaker 1: Bill Harris makes a great point in here. It's not
Speaker 1: just stuff you do in a lab, and it's not
Speaker 1: just for scientists. It is all about being hands on
Speaker 1: and active, and it's all about discovery and asking questions
Speaker 1: about I mean, that's how everything is ultimately solved, is
Speaker 1: by someone looking at something and having a question about
Speaker 1: it exactly.
Speaker 2: And then the scientific method comes in when you say,
Speaker 2: and this is how you properly get to that answer exactly.
Speaker 2: And he makes another good point too that the idea
Speaker 2: that there is a method, a scientific method makes it
Speaker 2: seem like it's it's secreted away, right, the fraternity of scientists,
Speaker 2: And like you said, anybody can use it. It's this
Speaker 2: kind of part of being a curious human.
Speaker 1: It's not even anyone can use it. Everyone does use
Speaker 1: it nice, you just might not even know that you're
Speaker 1: using it, like if you I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: examples that use later is if like your car overheats,
Speaker 1: when you figure it out why and fix it, that's
Speaker 1: the scientific method, right, playing.
Speaker 2: Out exactly based on reasoning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, in deduction and induction.
Speaker 2: Right man, there's so much to talk about, Okay, So
Speaker 2: let's let's talk about that definition that you had. So
Speaker 2: the first part is is that science is it's a
Speaker 2: practical activity. So science is practical, right, Yeah, it's it's this.
Speaker 2: The basis of the whole thing is discovery. Right. You
Speaker 2: see something, you see birds in flight, and you say,
Speaker 2: where are those birds going? And if you just went
Speaker 2: and laid down on the ground and went to sleep
Speaker 2: after that, then you're not you're not carrying out science.
Speaker 2: But if you went, I want to find out where
Speaker 2: those birds are going, and you follow them and you
Speaker 2: start taking notes. That's that is the basis of science.
Speaker 2: It's discovery.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the observational part as well. Sometimes you're
Speaker 1: using a microscope or a telescope. Sometimes you're using your eyeballs.
Speaker 1: But no matter what your tool is, you're going to
Speaker 1: be watching something and recording what's called data or data,
Speaker 1: depending on I don't know what kind of person you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you say?
Speaker 1: I think? I say both.
Speaker 2: I think I say data, data. Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't think. I say data, Okay, data, I say
Speaker 2: data data.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we'll go with data.
Speaker 2: You say both.
Speaker 1: I feel like it just comes out of my mouth
Speaker 1: one way or the other, and I don't really think
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: I think that's like being ambidextrous. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a data data Yeah. Uh So once you
Speaker 1: are observing this data, well, there are a couple of kinds.
Speaker 1: There's quantitative data, which are numbers, like you know, your
Speaker 1: body temperature is ninety eight point six. Although I think
Speaker 1: that's changed slightly now, hadn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, there used to be like, if you were
Speaker 2: a human being, your body temperature is ninety eight point six,
Speaker 2: and then REALI like, no, it's a little more variation
Speaker 2: than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but any kind of just numerical representation is quantitative,
Speaker 1: whereas qualitative is behavioral, like I'm going to watch that
Speaker 1: bird eat and poop for the next week.
Speaker 2: Right, Or what happens if I What will the slug
Speaker 2: do if I put a bunch of salt on it?
Speaker 2: You know, don't do that? No, you really should not
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: No, that's awful.
Speaker 2: But the reaction of the slug is gathering qualitative data.
Speaker 2: And depending on who you talk to, there isn't qualitative
Speaker 2: data and science that it should all just be quantitative
Speaker 2: because yeah, because quantitative data is reproducible. Qualitative data is
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily reproducible. You can observe the same phenomenon,
Speaker 2: but you're not necessarily controlling it.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I guess I get that. But I agree
Speaker 1: with Bill here and that they are both they go
Speaker 1: hand in hand. Yeah, and neither one is more important
Speaker 1: than the other. You need to have both.
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of people do, and we'll talk more
Speaker 2: about it later, because without the idea that qualitative data
Speaker 2: is acceptable and scientific, you don't have the social sciences,
Speaker 2: Like they don't exist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2: You know, But yes, we have quantitative data and qualitative data.
Speaker 2: I agree with you, they're both useful.
Speaker 1: Okay, it is an intellectual pursuit. So you can make
Speaker 1: observations on data all day long. But until you bring reason,
Speaker 1: in this case, inductive reasoning, which is driving a generalization
Speaker 1: based on your observations, then it's just data sitting there
Speaker 1: on a piece of paper like it's supposed to lead
Speaker 1: you somewhere.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, And so we should talk about inductive and
Speaker 2: deductive reasoning and it depending. Again. It's really weird. One
Speaker 2: of the things I came across is that there's not
Speaker 2: a universal agreement on how science is carried out. Like
Speaker 2: I've saw some places where there was like there's no
Speaker 2: place for inductive reasoning in science. Then other places are saying, well,
Speaker 2: you have to have science using inductive reasoning. Everybody seems
Speaker 2: to agree that deductive reasoning is the basis of science, right,
Speaker 2: but that you also have to have inductive So deductive
Speaker 2: is basically taking a big broad generalization and saying that
Speaker 2: it applies to.
Speaker 1: Something specific more specific.
Speaker 2: Yes, inductive is the opposite where you say, I've noticed
Speaker 2: these different data points, and that means that this broad
Speaker 2: generalization is true. So you go from specific, small observations
Speaker 2: to a broad generalization. And the reason that a lot
Speaker 2: of people say, well, inductive reasoning doesn't have any place
Speaker 2: in science is because you're saying, those birds over there
Speaker 2: are all brown. Therefore all birds of that type are brown.
Speaker 2: Even though I haven't seen every single bird of that
Speaker 2: type in the world. I'm saying that all those birds
Speaker 2: are brown, And a lot of people say there's no
Speaker 2: place for that in science.
Speaker 1: Well, if you want to go out and prove that,
Speaker 1: then that's your business. You know. You can't just say
Speaker 1: that and be like, and I'm done, right exactly, I
Speaker 1: guess you could but be much of a scientist, right, but.
Speaker 2: Use it to formulate, hey hypotheses. Sure, right, So you
Speaker 2: can say I've generated all these data points, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: put them together and see if this broad generalization is right. Okay,
Speaker 2: so there is a place for inductive reasoning science. But
Speaker 2: everybody says deductive reasoning is the basis of science.
Speaker 1: Well, Bill Harris does. He offers a great example for
Speaker 1: inductive reasoning with Edwin Hubble of the Hubble Telescope. He
Speaker 1: was looking through the Hooker telescope which at the time
Speaker 1: at California's Mount Wilson.
Speaker 2: Is that the one from Rebel Without a Cause?
Speaker 1: No, that's Griffith Park Observatory, which has been redesigned and
Speaker 1: is really cool now, is it. Yeah. I mean it
Speaker 1: was kind of cool before, but it was definitely like
Speaker 1: sort of the base museum that time forgot. Oh really,
Speaker 1: so they've updated it.
Speaker 2: I'll bet that was cool though in its own way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was neat. I used to live near there,
Speaker 1: so it was kind of.
Speaker 2: But that's like the famous one, at least in the movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where they have the big knife fight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's this James Deane statue there too.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't like a bust.
Speaker 1: So yes. Edwin Hubble he's at mountin Wilson and he's
Speaker 1: looking through the Hooker telescope, which was the biggest one
Speaker 1: and at the time everyone said the Milky Way Galaxy
Speaker 1: is it? That's what we've got going on?
Speaker 2: Did you know this?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I knew that because we're talking nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not that long ago. He did not realize this,
Speaker 1: and he started looking through the telescope and said, you
Speaker 1: know what these nebula that everyone says they're part of
Speaker 1: our galaxy, looked to me like they're beyond our galaxy.
Speaker 1: And not only that, they look like they're moving away
Speaker 1: from us. So he made this with through inductive reasoning,
Speaker 1: made this observation that you know what, I think there
Speaker 1: are many many galaxies out there, and not only that,
Speaker 1: I think they are expanding. Yeah, and through technological advancement
Speaker 1: with telescopes over the years, scientists, you know, it proved
Speaker 1: to be true.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Pretty cool. So this is a really good example
Speaker 2: of him saying, like, I've made some observations and now
Speaker 2: I'm going to say this broad generalization. Right, So these
Speaker 2: these galaxies appear to be moving away from me another,
Speaker 2: so the whole universe is expanding. Right, that's inductive reasoning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pretty brave thing, especially back then, because
Speaker 1: you're really putting your reputation at stake.
Speaker 2: It really is, you know. So what Hubble was, what
Speaker 2: Hubble did was what we've come to see as science.
Speaker 2: He made some observations, he came up with a hypothesis,
Speaker 2: and then it was tested later on. It's not you
Speaker 2: don't necessarily as a scientist. You're a part of a
Speaker 2: larger collective of scientists yes, right, And every scientist needs
Speaker 2: one another. It's why there's journals and conferences and things
Speaker 2: like that to share information.
Speaker 1: Right into party, right, and to party.
Speaker 2: And Hubble came up with his own observations, and rather
Speaker 2: than just experimenting and experimenting, experimenting himself, which I'm sure
Speaker 2: he continued to do, he created this basis of work
Speaker 2: that he probably realized is going to survive him. Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 2: And then later on scientists came down the road and
Speaker 2: they tested his hypothesis and they found it was correct,
Speaker 2: and so his hypothesis became a theory. It eventually became
Speaker 2: part of the basis of the Big Bang theory that
Speaker 2: the universe started as a huge explosion and it's expanding
Speaker 2: still because we're because it exploded at one point, right.
Speaker 2: And they did that by carrying out other.
Speaker 1: Tests or experiments exactly.
Speaker 2: So this is how science works. Like some guy back
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety makes some observations in California in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty five, he proposes this big broad generalization, and over
Speaker 2: the next like ensuing half a century, more and more
Speaker 2: scientists all around the world start testing his hypothesis and
Speaker 2: find it to be true. So it becomes a theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, well let's finish up here with sience Oka.
Speaker 1: The last part of the definition is that it's systematic,
Speaker 1: and it's methodical, and it requires testing and experiments, and
Speaker 1: that requires those experiments and tests to be repeated and verified.
Speaker 1: And it's a system. It's a way of working things out.
Speaker 1: It's a way of working Yeah. That is the scientific
Speaker 1: method basically. Yeah, you have your idea, you pose a question,
Speaker 1: you theorize, or you put a hypothesis out there, and
Speaker 1: then you go about trying to either prove it or
Speaker 1: disprove it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And then the way that you go about
Speaker 2: proving or disproving it, that's the scientific method. Everything else
Speaker 2: is just scientific inquiry. The way you go about, the
Speaker 2: standardized way of going about scientific inquiry is the scientific method.
Speaker 2: And we, friend, we'll talk about the scientific method right
Speaker 2: after this.
Speaker 1: All right, you brought up a point. I think we
Speaker 1: should go ahead and just get right to my friend,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Hypotheses and theories.
Speaker 2: One thing tough to say together. I know.
Speaker 1: One thing that really chafes my hide is when you
Speaker 1: hear poopoo ers of whatever scientific theory say, well, it's
Speaker 1: just a theory. Yeah, and you where was this thing
Speaker 1: that you found that poopoo that Do you remember what
Speaker 1: website that was?
Speaker 2: No, No, although I do want to give a shout
Speaker 2: out now that you mentioned it. Two explorables. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like an online university, basically a free courses and there
Speaker 2: is one on scientific reasoning that is just amazing. It's
Speaker 2: like a huge rabbit hole. You go down and you
Speaker 2: start clicking on the embedded links and you end up
Speaker 2: like understanding all sorts of stuff. So go check that.
Speaker 1: One out if you like understanding stuff. Right, So that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that bugged me if someone says
Speaker 1: it's just a theory, and this does a great job
Speaker 1: of kind of throwing that out the window because it's
Speaker 1: basically mixing up the two definitions of theory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a colloquial definition that people use every
Speaker 2: day that doesn't really have much to do with the
Speaker 2: scientific cuses.
Speaker 1: Like, I got a theory that Jerry and one hour
Speaker 1: bathroom breaks every day is really playing words with friends
Speaker 1: in the lobby.
Speaker 2: I think your theory is correct.
Speaker 1: So that's a theory in the colloquial meaning as far
Speaker 1: as science goes. A theory is not just something you postulate, say,
Speaker 1: this may or may not be true. A theory is
Speaker 1: beyond the hypothesis, and it's something that is strongly supported
Speaker 1: in many different ways and all there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: evidence to support something that eventually becomes a theory.
Speaker 2: Right, So what you your theory about Jerry's bathroom breaks
Speaker 2: this scientific world would be a hypothesis. What fact, it
Speaker 2: would be a scientific law, but it ultimately would begin
Speaker 2: as a hypothesis, a hunch based on intuition, based on
Speaker 2: data you've collected, observations, that kind of stuff. Where Like,
Speaker 2: you know, you've seen that Jerry goes to the bathroom
Speaker 2: for like an hour to stretch frequently. When she comes back,
Speaker 2: she's finishing up a game of words with friends. Sure,
Speaker 2: you've heard that she's been spotted in the lobby during
Speaker 2: these times. So your hypothesis is that while she is
Speaker 2: gone for these hour long bathroom breaks, she's actually down
Speaker 2: the lobby playing words with friends.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, based on knowledge, observation, and logic. Right.
Speaker 2: So let's say that you decided to set up an experiment,
Speaker 2: and you experimented, and you went and you found Jerry
Speaker 2: playing words with friends. Yeah, five different times, and you
Speaker 2: told me about it, and I was like, I'm going
Speaker 2: to run that same experiment exactly the way you did. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: I would test that same hypothsis. If I found the
Speaker 2: same results to be true, then what you would have
Speaker 2: come up with, your hypothesis would move to basically a
Speaker 2: theory that is, this widely accepted thing, this explanation that
Speaker 2: Jerry is not actually in the bathroom, she's downstairs playing
Speaker 2: with friends. It'd be the Jerry bathroom break theory, that's right.
Speaker 2: And then if it turns out that you find that
Speaker 2: Jerry spending an hour a day pretending to be in
Speaker 2: the bathroom but actually being downstairs playing words with friends,
Speaker 2: if the universe couldn't exist without her doing that every day, yeah,
Speaker 2: you would have a scientific law.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that was a good example you came
Speaker 2: up with.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great example, as it turns out. I
Speaker 1: guess the point here is when you hear someone say
Speaker 1: in an argument, well that's just a theory, just punch
Speaker 1: him in the head and then tell them what we
Speaker 1: just said about the bathroom breaks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they'll say, who's cherry or just queue up
Speaker 2: that whole bit and stand outside of their window wearing
Speaker 2: a trench coat and holding a boom box over your
Speaker 2: head with the smug look on your face.
Speaker 1: All right, So should we go back in the old
Speaker 1: way back machine a little bit and just talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how the scientific method came to be?
Speaker 2: Yes, man, this this thing? What are you running this
Speaker 2: on these days? A straight kerosene? The fumes in here
Speaker 2: are killing me.
Speaker 1: Sorry about that. I'm trying to go green.
Speaker 2: You know, kerosene is not green.
Speaker 1: Diesel. Maybe I'm choking biodiesel? How about that? Okay, the
Speaker 1: way back machine will run French fried grease. That would
Speaker 1: be fine, right, I'll get to work on that. I
Speaker 1: could handle this few So you tease this with the Renaissance,
Speaker 1: and the reason the Renaissance was so awesome and necessary
Speaker 1: it was because of something else we've talked about, which
Speaker 1: was the Dark Ages.
Speaker 2: Which remember that's a rationalist's disparaging term for this era.
Speaker 1: That's right, but I think sort of rightfully so, because
Speaker 1: right before the Dark Ages until about a century after,
Speaker 1: there was not much advancement at all in the realm
Speaker 1: of scientific advancement.
Speaker 2: No, it's true, it's hard to argue with that, and
Speaker 2: The reason why is again, science wasn't really born yet,
Speaker 2: and there is a huge struggle between rationalism and mysticism,
Speaker 2: and ultimately we're living in the age of rationalism now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we should point out too that this was
Speaker 1: mainly in Europe over in the Islamic world. As I
Speaker 1: think we had a listener mail point out, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of advancements being made just sort of flying
Speaker 1: under the European radar at the time, because some say
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church kind of kept science under its thumb
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, and it's a pretty big threat
Speaker 1: and said, you know, you can't do this stuff, you
Speaker 1: can't experiment like this, and don't ask these questions, right
Speaker 1: because here are your answers. Yeah. But eventually the Renaissance
Speaker 1: came about in the twelfth century and people woke up
Speaker 1: and saw some of the work in the Islamic world
Speaker 1: and said, you know what, maybe let's start reading up
Speaker 1: on Aristotle and tootle of me and euclid it once again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, we forgot about these guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it literally kind of vanished for a while, it.
Speaker 2: Did from the West. Yes, Fortunately it was still around,
Speaker 2: you know, in its home places. But yes, in the
Speaker 2: West they were lost. The Roman stuff was almost entirely
Speaker 2: lost because it was being suppressed by the locals.
Speaker 1: And I think the Greek knowledge was completely vanished.
Speaker 2: Yes, somehow, somehow they got there was some We got
Speaker 2: another listener mail after the Enlightenment. One they said that
Speaker 2: it was an Islamic scholar who was the one who
Speaker 2: translated Aristotle right into Latin or something like that, and
Speaker 2: that without this guy, like the West wouldn't have had
Speaker 2: much to start with. Because that's where that birth of
Speaker 2: rationalism came from, was this rediscovery of Greek and Roman
Speaker 2: classical thought. And this was the basis of scientific inquiry,
Speaker 2: of rationalism, of saying, like, okay, there's set rules to things,
Speaker 2: and we need to discover these rules and how the
Speaker 2: principles of how the universe works, like there has to
Speaker 2: be principles, and we need to find this in a rational,
Speaker 2: methodical way. And right out of the gate, Europe said, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: well whatever you say is right, then, Aristotle, We're used
Speaker 2: to just believing everything without questioning it. Yeah, And luckily
Speaker 2: albert Magnus, I think is who it was.
Speaker 1: Albertus.
Speaker 2: Was it Albertus Magnus or Roger Bacon, who said, no,
Speaker 2: it is Bacon. Roger Bacon, who just has this great name,
Speaker 2: Roger Bacon.
Speaker 1: The Bacon brothers. Yeah, he says, Roger, Right, they weren't brothers,
Speaker 1: But were they related at all? You know, I look
Speaker 1: that up and I don't think people know either way.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any proof, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people think because of the names and the way things
Speaker 1: went back then, that they may very well have been lighted.
Speaker 2: And I mean they were separated by three hundred or
Speaker 2: so years.
Speaker 1: Although Roger was a was a monk, so he would
Speaker 1: not have had children. So if they were, it's an
Speaker 1: excellent point. It wasn't necessarily through his line, gotcha, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could have been a nephew or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or his brother Kevin might have had the line
Speaker 1: that matched.
Speaker 2: So Roger was the one who said, everybody stopped. Just
Speaker 2: because Aristotle wrote something doesn't mean it's fact, especially when
Speaker 2: we find contradictions to it. Yeah, it doesn't Aircell's not
Speaker 2: automatically right, and this is a huge advancement.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And Albertus Magnus was the one, I believe who said,
Speaker 1: you know this thing called revealed truth, which is basically
Speaker 1: God says this instead of a truth found by experimenting,
Speaker 1: is maybe we should experiment instead and not take this
Speaker 1: revealed truth as the truth.
Speaker 2: Right. And we mentioned in the Enlightenment episode of Well
Speaker 2: about scholasticism, about using scientific inquiry to explain theology, right,
Speaker 2: which was, you know, you're still working from a theological standpoint,
Speaker 2: but you're starting to use scientific inquiry and the the
Speaker 2: idea that you shouldn't just accept things as truth. That
Speaker 2: was again a huge, huge breakthrough.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh. Francis Bacon, the other Bacon.
Speaker 2: Brother, he's one of the heroes of this story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was an attorney and philosopher and possibly Shakespeare.
Speaker 2: Oh really, huh?
Speaker 1: I never heard that. Oh yeah, interesting. So what do
Speaker 1: you mean, like wrote those under the a pseudonym? Yeah, huh.
Speaker 1: And then the Shakespeare sister was the other theory too,
Speaker 1: Right it was a woman. I've heard that, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: she couldn't, like, you know, women couldn't be the playwright.
Speaker 1: So that's her dumb brother, William.
Speaker 2: That's a good credit, was it her brother?
Speaker 1: I think that was one of the theories.
Speaker 2: Huh. This was a good Smith song too.
Speaker 1: Uh. Shakespeare sister? Is that the name of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: wasn't it a band too?
Speaker 2: I think it was? What was it?
Speaker 1: Maybe? So anyway, he was a philosopher and a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, the Baconian method basically
Speaker 1: became the scientific method.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was the first dude who really said, this is
Speaker 1: how the steps that you should take to investigate science.
Speaker 2: Right, there has to be a framework. And the whole
Speaker 2: point of this that we take this so for granted
Speaker 2: now because it's so intuitively and on its face, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: as far as scienceific inquiry goes. But this is an
Speaker 2: enormous breakthrough to say, you follow this step, these steps,
Speaker 2: this framework, and if everybody who carries out science follows
Speaker 2: the same framework, then science will be universal and interchangeable
Speaker 2: and anyone in the world and not just now, but anytime. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll be able to carry out the same experiment and
Speaker 2: we'll be able to verify or disprove it. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: that is amazing that that happened. That's why Francis Bacon
Speaker 2: is one of the heroes of the story. And he
Speaker 2: didn't come up with this entirely on his own, but
Speaker 2: he was the one who said this is what we're
Speaker 2: going to do. I'm going to give it a name.
Speaker 2: I'm going to spell it out, and from now on
Speaker 2: you can call me the dad of the scientific method.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's why Newton was such a rock star,
Speaker 1: because he's so rigorously stuck to the scientific method that
Speaker 1: all these centuries later, his you know, his systems of
Speaker 1: laws are they have stood the test of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a good point to bring up
Speaker 1: to that the collaboration of scientists is really the hallmark
Speaker 1: of advancement and moving forward. It's not working in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: It's sharing your ideas and working with one another. And
Speaker 1: the whole little sidebar here on self theory I thought
Speaker 1: was pretty cool, which was when science quit or not quit,
Speaker 1: but started looking at small things instead of looking at
Speaker 1: the universe around them and at the stars. Right, and said, basically,
Speaker 1: you know, through the advancement of lens grinding, Antonio van Levin'
Speaker 1: Hook specifically a Dutch tradesman, was pretty good at making
Speaker 1: simple microscopes, and all of a sudden, contemporaries like Robert
Speaker 1: Hook said, you know what, let's start looking at tiny
Speaker 1: things because therein might lie the answer to many many things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're right. Robert Hook found cork, or he
Speaker 2: discovered cells by looking at cork, Yeah, through an early microscope.
Speaker 2: So in this story, sciences hastened by technological advancement lens grinding, yeah,
Speaker 2: and to make microscopes, and then this new technology is
Speaker 2: used to further science, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like mutual inspiration between Leavin Hook and Hook.
Speaker 1: Leavin Hook.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was neat because Hook heard about Leavin Hook's microscopes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: got his hands on one or a microscope, looked at
Speaker 2: him like a cork, and said, oh, there's such a thing
Speaker 2: as cells, right. Leavin Hook said, oh, that's pretty neat.
Speaker 2: Let me try. And he said, oh, there's such a
Speaker 2: thing as quote little animals, right, which we call protozoan bacteria. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and one of the Royal Societies. After Leaving Hook presented
Speaker 2: his findings, turned back to Hook and said, hey, Hook,
Speaker 2: we know you're pretty handy with the microscope. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: confirmed leaving Hook's findings are their little animals. Hook said
Speaker 2: there are, indeed, I can see them with my microscope.
Speaker 1: That's right. And that inspired a German botanist name Mattias
Speaker 1: Schleiden to look at a lot of plants and he
Speaker 1: was the first guy to say, you know what, plants
Speaker 1: are composed of cells. And he was having dinner one
Speaker 1: night with his zoologist buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is about one hundred years later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Theodore schwan and said, you know what, dude, order
Speaker 1: the wine and order the ste trust me because this
Speaker 1: place is fantastic. And also, plants are made of cells.
Speaker 1: Don't tell anyone. And he went, you know what, dude,
Speaker 1: I have been investigating animals with microscopes and they're made
Speaker 1: of cells too.
Speaker 2: And so they figured out at this dinner, yeah, that
Speaker 2: everything is made of sales, all living things are made
Speaker 2: of cells.
Speaker 1: Boom.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is huge. This is a big advancement, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're hitting upon right now. Huge, but it laid the
Speaker 2: further foundation, right, So initial scientific inquiry led to further
Speaker 2: scientific inquiry and further scientific conclusions and generalizations All living
Speaker 2: things are made of cells, and then it was extrapolated elsewhere. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like twenty years later, Rudolph Virtual said, you know what,
Speaker 1: not only is everything made of living cells, but they
Speaker 1: all come from pre existing cells, which was a huge
Speaker 1: deal at the time because people believed in spontaneous generation.
Speaker 2: Yeah. At the time, like if you left some wheat
Speaker 2: seed in a sweaty shirt, it would spawn mice. I
Speaker 2: think was one of them. Gross, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: weird ones. Press basil between some bricks and you'll get
Speaker 2: a scorpion. Was one, like they were really out there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well the one that is well not true. But
Speaker 1: the one that you could actually see was rotten meat
Speaker 1: would eventually spawn maggots.
Speaker 2: Right, how did they possibly get there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, spontaneous generation.
Speaker 2: But that's the obvious explanation, and if you think about it,
Speaker 2: they're working from Okham's razor. An Okham's razor says, the
Speaker 2: simplest explanation is usually the right one. Yeah, all other
Speaker 2: things given. Well, the thing is is spontaneous generation has
Speaker 2: never been shown to be possible. Right, if we've got
Speaker 2: the cell thing over here, let's investigate that. So this
Speaker 2: what was the guy's name, Virchow? Yes, he's saying, okay,
Speaker 2: well wait a minute, I've got this cell theory I'm
Speaker 2: working on that's been around for a couple of decades.
Speaker 2: Hypothesis probably cell hypothesis at the nice catch.
Speaker 1: Don't feel bad though, because this article that you sent
Speaker 1: said that scientists today like still like confuse those terms, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just colloquially.
Speaker 2: And the House Stiff Works article makes a good point
Speaker 2: in saying that science and everything that has to do
Speaker 2: with it is in the scientific method is very fluid, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and open new interpretation and experimentation. Yeah, obviously. But so
Speaker 2: he says, Okay, this cell hypothesis, this is a pretty
Speaker 2: good explanation for what we now call spontaneous generation. He
Speaker 2: didn't do anything about it. He just put it out there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then along comes Louis Pasteur, who does do something
Speaker 2: about it. He figures out a great experiment to try
Speaker 2: to disprove spontaneous generation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty simple too. He basically took a broth,
Speaker 1: put equal amounts in two different beakers. One had a
Speaker 1: straight neck and one had an S shaped neck. He
Speaker 1: boiled it just to make sure everything in it was killed, yea,
Speaker 1: and then just let it sit there in the same
Speaker 1: can conditions, open to the to the world and or
Speaker 1: open to the room like it wasn't corked. In other words,
Speaker 1: no court. He noticed that the one with the straight
Speaker 1: neck eventually became cloudy and discolored, meaning there was some
Speaker 1: junk growing in there. Yeah, and the one in the
Speaker 1: S shape neck did not do anything. It remained the same, right,
Speaker 1: So it led him to think.
Speaker 2: What, well, he thought that germs, that there were such
Speaker 2: thing as germs which leaving hook and hook had already shown. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that if that in the S shaped flask they
Speaker 2: had gotten trapped in the neck, in this the open neck,
Speaker 2: they had been able to just enter unobstructed and had
Speaker 2: generated there. The reason that the S shape flask was
Speaker 2: still sterile was because there is no such thing as
Speaker 2: spontaneous generation. If there were, then no S shaped neck
Speaker 2: would impede anything like that.
Speaker 1: And boom, there you have it.
Speaker 2: So he disproved that spontaneous generation is a thing.
Speaker 1: Right, that's right through the scientific myth exactly.
Speaker 2: Here's the leap that a lot of people make, scientists
Speaker 2: included that really is a great disservice to science. He
Speaker 2: didn't prove cell theory, right. What he did was take
Speaker 2: that cell hypothesis and present some really persuasive evidence that
Speaker 2: it's probably right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But like this article you sent points out, disproving
Speaker 1: something is just as important as proving something.
Speaker 2: So here's the thing that's the most you can hope
Speaker 2: for with science is disproving sure with science, unless you're
Speaker 2: talking about math. With science, there's no such thing as proof.
Speaker 2: A theory, even a law, a universal law, still has
Speaker 2: the potential for being undermined by one single experiment, one
Speaker 2: single observation, and therefore there is no real ultimate proof
Speaker 2: In science. There's just theories and support for theories, and
Speaker 2: then ultimately laws and further and further support for laws, right,
Speaker 2: but they're not proven. What science does ultimately is disprove
Speaker 2: things or lend support for existing theories or existing interpretations
Speaker 2: of why things happen the way they do. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: that's what Pasture did. So if you look at that experiment,
Speaker 2: he disproved spontaneous generation, but he lent support to the
Speaker 2: cell theory, and probably with his experiment it went from
Speaker 2: the cell hypothesis to the cell theory, right, because it
Speaker 2: was just so persuasive. And that's what a theory is.
Speaker 2: It means that a lot of people out there who
Speaker 2: are reasonable say this explanation is probably the right one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's predictive. If you do it over and over,
Speaker 1: you're probably going to get the same result. Right.
Speaker 2: But that's not to say that Pastures showed that if
Speaker 2: you do this a million and one times that the
Speaker 2: s shaped flask won't turn cloudy. Yeah, he didn't prove that.
Speaker 2: You can't prove that, which is again science can disprove
Speaker 2: and lend support can't prove.
Speaker 1: Very good point. So right after this message break, we're
Speaker 1: going to get into the actual steps of the scientific method.
Speaker 1: All right, dude, I guess at long last we're there.
Speaker 1: Like you mentioned before, the scientific method is fluid, and
Speaker 1: it's not like when you get your science degree they
Speaker 1: hand you a little laminated card like the Miranda rights
Speaker 1: that cops carry that you know, list out all the
Speaker 1: different steps you have to take. But generally maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would we should carry those around.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: We should make little wallet cars of the scientific method
Speaker 2: just to carry stuff you should know logo on it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'll make a million bucks.
Speaker 1: Brand them and sell them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, though, it follows these steps. The first thing
Speaker 1: you do, like we mentioned earlier, is you observe something.
Speaker 1: You ask a question next, Like Darwin was known, I
Speaker 1: think when we did our podcast on him to he
Speaker 1: would spend like a week on three square feet of ground.
Speaker 2: It was like even longer than that.
Speaker 1: Remember it was, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: He said that he didn't he wasn't gonna Moe's lawn
Speaker 2: for like three years because he wanted to see what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's the ultimate and qualitative data of just observing,
Speaker 1: writing things down, and asking questions. And the reason you
Speaker 1: ask your question is so you can narrow something down
Speaker 1: like that. I think the example they use in here
Speaker 1: is on Galapagos, like the beaks of what bird?
Speaker 2: Was it? Finches?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the finch bird. He noticed a bunch of different beaks,
Speaker 1: so he finally posed a question, like, you know, I
Speaker 1: think these beaks are different for a very specific reason,
Speaker 1: and I aim to find out why.
Speaker 2: Yes, he said, what caused the diversification of finches on Galapagos? Who?
Speaker 1: You should have done that with an accent?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he would have had a ritorse acent huh yeah, huh.
Speaker 1: Unless he was pretending to be someone else.
Speaker 2: I always think of him as like sounding like Hemingway
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, just drunk and violent kind of.
Speaker 2: But he wasn't. He was like the opposite of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I saw that the movie, so I picture
Speaker 1: his voice as the dude that played him who I.
Speaker 2: Can't remember right now, ed Norton.
Speaker 1: No, I finally saw Birdman though, do you see that? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: great movie.
Speaker 2: I disagree.
Speaker 1: Oh you didn't like it?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Wow? That surprises me. We'll get into that off air.
Speaker 1: So uh sorry, you just threw me with that.
Speaker 2: Make an observation. Yes, he's ungalopaghost and he's like, what
Speaker 2: the heck's with all these different finches? It's one small island.
Speaker 2: Why would there be different species of finch? So ask
Speaker 2: and why are they all seeming to survive and coexist?
Speaker 2: So well, what's what? Yeah? Then he leads to the
Speaker 2: question what's making all of these species of finches so diverse?
Speaker 1: Right? Or Bill Harris uses a pretty good example. That's
Speaker 1: something everyone can understand, like what car body shape is
Speaker 1: the best for air resistance? Like one the shape like
Speaker 1: a box, or one the shape like aerodynamic like a bird. Right,
Speaker 1: And he carries that out In the next step. You
Speaker 1: formulate your hypothesis based on your you know, fore knowledge
Speaker 1: and maybe observations like so, you know what, I think
Speaker 1: that a car shaped like a bird is probably more
Speaker 1: aerodynamic than one shape like a box.
Speaker 2: Yeah. If you're thinking, if you're the type of person
Speaker 2: who's sitting around asking questions about aerodynamics, you probably already
Speaker 2: have some sort of sense that a box is less
Speaker 2: aerodynamic than a bird.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Boxes rarely fly unless they're carried by one of those
Speaker 2: delightful Amazon delivery drones.
Speaker 1: They don't have those yet, right, They're not gonna do that,
Speaker 1: are they.
Speaker 2: There's like a pizza delivery drone service, man, I think
Speaker 2: where you No, it's pizza grilled cheese in New York
Speaker 2: and you go stand on an ax after you order
Speaker 2: and it like comes and drops it.
Speaker 1: That is the dumbest thing of error. And I can't
Speaker 1: wait to do it.
Speaker 2: But they're making a lot of money.
Speaker 1: That's pretty funny. Yeah, we can't get food to the
Speaker 1: homeless somehow, exactly, we can drop a grilled cheese on
Speaker 1: someone's head.
Speaker 2: They're like, you homeless, get off of that x exactly.
Speaker 1: All right. So your hypothesis I don't think we ever
Speaker 1: mentioned is typically represented as an if then statement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're doing good science, Yeah, like.
Speaker 1: If the car's profile, well the example he uses if
Speaker 1: the body's profile related to the amount of air it produces,
Speaker 1: which is the more general statement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like based on a theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's going to get more specific then the
Speaker 1: car design, like the body of a bird will be
Speaker 1: more aerodynamic than one like a box.
Speaker 2: So that's inductive reasoning, starting with the broad statement and
Speaker 2: going to something narrow.
Speaker 1: And it's if. Then at the same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now you have a test. You have a
Speaker 2: question that can be answered, you can figure out a
Speaker 2: way to answer it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he points out too, this is pretty important
Speaker 1: that your hypothesis, if it's formulated correctly, means that it's
Speaker 1: testable and it's falsifiable.
Speaker 2: Which are often one and the same true, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that's again we go to the people who say
Speaker 2: that their soft sciences aren't real science, they're pseudoscience because
Speaker 2: a lot of the data that they come up with,
Speaker 2: a lot of the hypotheses they come up with aren't falsifiable,
Speaker 2: they're not testable. Right, it's a thing, it's an issue,
Speaker 2: it's a thing.
Speaker 1: So next up in the steps, you're going to experiment.
Speaker 1: And when you experiment, you can't just go in there
Speaker 1: Willie Nelly and do whatever you want. You have to
Speaker 1: set up specific conditions and they must be controlled. That's
Speaker 1: the key.
Speaker 2: And you want to everything that's supposed to be identical
Speaker 2: need to be identical. So basically you have two variables.
Speaker 2: At least you have an independent variable, yes, and you
Speaker 2: have a dependent variable. And if you're talking about car shape,
Speaker 2: that is the independent variable in this study.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the one that's manipulated.
Speaker 2: Exactly, it's the one you're controlling. The independent variable is
Speaker 2: the one you, the researcher, is controlling. So in this case,
Speaker 2: you're controlling the shape of the car. You have yourself
Speaker 2: a bird shape car and you have yourself a box
Speaker 2: shaped car. So the shape of the car changed because
Speaker 2: you made it change. Now when you blast a bunch
Speaker 2: of air over it during your experiment, what you're measuring
Speaker 2: is the dependent variable. So you're measuring what happens based
Speaker 2: on the change that you made.
Speaker 1: That's right, And you want to study one single variable
Speaker 1: at a time, basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't get fancy, just do good science, step by step, methodical.
Speaker 1: You also have to have your control group in any experiment,
Speaker 1: and an experimental group, and the controlled group is what's
Speaker 1: gonna allow you to compare the test results to that
Speaker 1: baseline measurement. Yeah, and you need that baseline measurement, so
Speaker 1: it's not just like chance.
Speaker 2: Basically, exactly, like if Pasture had just done the S
Speaker 2: shaped neck and nothing happened. Right, he wouldn't have necessarily
Speaker 2: been able to say that he was right even though
Speaker 2: he was right. He needed that control, which was the
Speaker 2: open flask, right.
Speaker 1: Or with the cars, you need two cars, like you said,
Speaker 1: one bird shaped and one box shaped.
Speaker 2: Right, Or then maybe in this case, since the bird
Speaker 2: shape and the box shape both show up in the hypothsis,
Speaker 2: you'd need a third like egg shaped one or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Oh, I bet that would be pretty streamlined.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But the key though, is all of those variables have
Speaker 1: to be All the other variables have to be the same,
Speaker 1: like you have to have them. They have to be
Speaker 1: the same weight, they have to be painted the same,
Speaker 1: the tires, everything, the windows. One can't have an antenna
Speaker 1: on the other, knot. They've all they got to be
Speaker 1: identical other than the one variable.
Speaker 2: Right, the independent variable that you're that's the one you
Speaker 2: want different. Everything else you want the same or else
Speaker 2: as possible that Oh well, this one had bigger tires,
Speaker 2: so that actually made it more aerodynamic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're just doing yourself a favor by doing
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Yeah, you know, you want to rule
Speaker 1: out everything else but that one variable.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: After that you want to analyze your data so you
Speaker 1: can draw your conclusion. And sometimes it's kind of straightforward
Speaker 1: and easy. Sometimes takes a lot of work and a
Speaker 1: lot of various tools. Yes, draw it out.
Speaker 2: Let's say you're just blasting a car in a wind tunnel. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're measuring the wind resistance using certain awesome instruments and
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, and you're taking that data, and
Speaker 2: then afterward you're going to analyze it. You're going to
Speaker 2: compare the data that you gathered from the bird shaped
Speaker 2: car the box shaped car, and then the control the
Speaker 2: egg shaped car. Right, You're going to compare them, and
Speaker 2: you're going to say, well, the wind resistance was less
Speaker 2: for the bird shaped car than the box shaped car,
Speaker 2: which means that my hypothesis was correct.
Speaker 1: Right, and here all the data points, whereas Louis pasteor
Speaker 1: could just say, look at the beakers exactly.
Speaker 2: Don't be an idiot. Yeah, I'm a scientist.
Speaker 1: That one's got gross stuff. You can see it, right.
Speaker 2: But the other thing about science, too, Chuck, ideally, is
Speaker 2: let's say that egg shaped one turned out the control
Speaker 2: group turned out to have better wind resistance than anything. Well,
Speaker 2: just by virtue of carrying out this experiment correctly, you
Speaker 2: would have stumbled upon an even better aerodynamic design, and
Speaker 2: you would have come up with that little egg shaped
Speaker 2: Mercedes suv. Yeah, that was so huge, just like ten
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 1: The Mercedes egg right coming to a store near you.
Speaker 2: So that's a big, big part of the scientific method
Speaker 2: is carrying out a an experiment, control the variables, analyzing
Speaker 2: the data. And then there's a step that he missed
Speaker 2: that is very rarely part of a scientific method list.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that is to share your data. Oh sure,
Speaker 2: and this is a huge problem with science right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the article you sent was really eye opening. Scientific
Speaker 1: research has changed the world. Now it needs to change itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an economist article. It's up on the internet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was kind of scary that it's I mean,
Speaker 1: here's some of the data he points out is one
Speaker 1: rule of thumb among biotech venture capitalists is about half
Speaker 1: fifty percent of published research can't even be replicated. And
Speaker 1: a biotech firm, Amjin, found that they could reproduce only
Speaker 1: six of their fifty three landmark studies in cancer research.
Speaker 1: So you can't repeat these things. It's like everyone's fighting
Speaker 1: for dollars in fame, and maybe not fame, but to
Speaker 1: some of our career advancement, sure such that they're kind
Speaker 1: of not doing that final step any longer.
Speaker 2: No, and it's not necessarily just them, it's the other
Speaker 2: scientists aren't going back and saying, well, let me see
Speaker 2: if your results are reproducible. People are just taking it
Speaker 2: on faith. We need another Roger Bacon to come along
Speaker 2: and be like, dude, we can't just blindly accept that
Speaker 2: one person carried out this one study and then just
Speaker 2: go do clinical trials on it without anybody reproducing it
Speaker 2: to see if the results can be verified independently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because, and this is a good time to mention bias.
Speaker 1: There is such a thing as bias, and it still happens.
Speaker 1: A scientist is usually out to prove something or disprove
Speaker 1: something that they want a specific result. Like even if
Speaker 1: you're super open minded, you're probably hoping to disprove or
Speaker 1: prove something one way or the other, and your confirmation
Speaker 1: bias might you know, even if you don't think you're
Speaker 1: doing it, you might nudge out some results that don't
Speaker 1: support your hypothesis, and so you won't make it into
Speaker 1: that awesome journal which this author points out that journals
Speaker 1: need to start putting in what he calls uninteresting results
Speaker 1: in experiments, right, or like the stuff that's not sexy, right, or.
Speaker 2: Studies that failed to show that their hypothesis was correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, stuff is disproved.
Speaker 2: Those things still need to well not even disproved. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess it is disproved. But yes, like the guy
Speaker 2: set out to say, like that a red balloon uses
Speaker 2: less helium than a silver balloon and it turns out
Speaker 2: that no, they use the same amount of helium. Well,
Speaker 2: if that study gets published and put out there into
Speaker 2: the scientific literature on helium and balloons, then it's going
Speaker 2: to prevent some other scientists down the road from wasting time, money,
Speaker 2: and helium, which, as you'll remember, is an increasingly needed commodity.
Speaker 2: By carrying out the same experiment, whether the results are
Speaker 2: positive or negative or what, the study is meant to
Speaker 2: be shared. And that's the point of the scientific method
Speaker 2: is to reduce bias, right, And if you follow it
Speaker 2: all the way through ideally and do all of the steps,
Speaker 2: including share your research whether it's happy or sad, then
Speaker 2: science benefits. The world benefits, and by not doing that,
Speaker 2: the world does not benefit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He points out that these days only fourteen percent
Speaker 1: of published papers are quote unquote negative results, and it
Speaker 1: used to be like thirty percent or more. And he says,
Speaker 1: because it's a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 1: this sort of you know, getting in these journals and
Speaker 1: you're the rockstar scientist and this study is super sexy.
Speaker 1: Like if they kind of quit going that route and
Speaker 1: made it what it should be, then research dollars would
Speaker 1: be better spent and people could, you know, he said,
Speaker 1: the peer reviewed thing isn't even all it's cracked up.
Speaker 2: To be, I know. He mentions a study from a
Speaker 2: medical journal that gave a bunch of peer reviewers some
Speaker 2: stuff with deliberate errors inserted into the research, into the studies,
Speaker 2: and even when they were told that they were being
Speaker 2: tested to find this, they still missed.
Speaker 1: A lot of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the science needs to kind of reevaluate the
Speaker 2: way it's carrying out science. It's not science. The problem
Speaker 2: isn't science itself. The problem isn't the scientific method. It's
Speaker 2: the way that it's being used or not followed through.
Speaker 2: And a lot of it has to do with academia
Speaker 2: and the people funding science.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he said, you know, these days there's up
Speaker 1: seven million researchers, and back in the day, even in
Speaker 1: like the nineteen fifties, there were like a few thousand maybe, right,
Speaker 1: So there's just a lot of career competition, he calls
Speaker 1: it careerism. And so you fake a result or too,
Speaker 1: or you just nudge out some results that don't support
Speaker 1: your hypothesis. Yes, you want the bigger paycheck or the
Speaker 1: fame or notoriety, and all of a sudden, science is
Speaker 1: not science. Yeah, you know, it's pseudoscience exactly.
Speaker 2: And speaking of pseudoscience, I think we've reached the point
Speaker 2: where we should talk about the limitations of the scientific method,
Speaker 2: because it does have its limits, right, like the way
Speaker 2: that the scientific method is set up, especially if you
Speaker 2: go through if you include falsification, which most scientists now
Speaker 2: say is a thing like falsifiability of your hypothesis means
Speaker 2: that you have a real scientific hypothesis the if it
Speaker 2: can be disproven by some observation or some measurement or whatever,
Speaker 2: then it's falsifiable. And if it's not falsifiable, then it's
Speaker 2: not really science. So the thing is for something to
Speaker 2: be falsifiable, and it was actually a philosopher that came
Speaker 2: up with the concept of falsification a guy named Carl
Speaker 2: Popper in the nineteen thirties, and he was the one
Speaker 2: that said, like, you have to be able to falsify
Speaker 2: something for it to be disproven or supported, and if not,
Speaker 2: then it's pseudoscience. Well, part and parcel of that is
Speaker 2: that what you're saying has to be able to be
Speaker 2: detected rially, there's some way that has to the presence
Speaker 2: of it has to be measured or inferred. And so
Speaker 2: a lot of people say, well, then with the scientific
Speaker 2: method it reaches the limits of its current usefulness when
Speaker 2: it tries to explain the supernatural. When somebody says.
Speaker 1: Like, ghosts are real, exactly.
Speaker 2: You can't prove that, well, you also can't disprove it either, right,
Speaker 2: And so if you are a scientist who says, because
Speaker 2: the scientific method can't prove or disprove the existence of
Speaker 2: ghosts or God, there is no such thing as ghosts
Speaker 2: or God, you're making a leap of faith just as
Speaker 2: much as the same person who says science can't prove
Speaker 2: or disprove the existence of ghosts or God, therefore God's
Speaker 2: and ghosts are real. They're both leaps of faith, and
Speaker 2: that really the most scientific approach to the existence of
Speaker 2: the supernatural, whether it is ghost or God, is that
Speaker 2: we see simply don't know, and that we cannot know scientifically.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean that it does exist or doesn't exist, right,
Speaker 2: And that's saying that science shows that it does or
Speaker 2: doesn't exist is by definition the opposite of what science shows.
Speaker 2: Science shows neither. It's not capable of showing or showing
Speaker 2: that something doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. The other place where science
Speaker 1: can get corrupted is when it blurs the lines, or
Speaker 1: when people blur the lines between moral judgments and science
Speaker 1: value judgments. Like you can study global warming, you can
Speaker 1: study cause and effect, you can report data, but when
Speaker 1: you make that secondly to say, and this is a scientist,
Speaker 1: I mean someone can come along and say global warming
Speaker 1: is bad, you shouldn't drive your suv. That's fine, But
Speaker 1: a scientist can't do a study and say that, because
Speaker 1: that's a value judgment. And that's where science can get corrupted.
Speaker 1: Pretty much. You can you can study glow warming and
Speaker 1: results till the cows come home, but you can't assert
Speaker 1: that if you use this light bulb you're a bad person.
Speaker 2: Right, or ocean and acidification is bad. It's not good
Speaker 2: for humans. But if you're a jellyfish is awesome, right
Speaker 2: you know? So yes, And again you made a great point.
Speaker 2: It's not science, it's people using science to make value judgments.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it ultimately the scientific method, although it does have
Speaker 2: its limitations in that it needs empirical data to prove
Speaker 2: or disprove something. It's not. It's not flawed. That's not
Speaker 2: a flaw. That's a limitation, and it's it's when it's
Speaker 2: misused then it's results become flawed or skewed. And that's
Speaker 2: the people doing it, man, not science.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: It's pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, this is a good one.
Speaker 2: I thought so too.
Speaker 1: Man, let it start out with a bang boom. It's
Speaker 1: all downhill from here.
Speaker 2: If you want to know more about scientific method, check
Speaker 2: out that article on the Economists, check out explorables, and
Speaker 2: then of course, check out the scientific method in the
Speaker 2: search bar at HowStuffWorks dot com. And since I said that,
Speaker 2: it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: That's right. But quickly before listener mail, we get asked
Speaker 1: by listeners all the time, what can we do since
Speaker 1: you have a free podcast. We can't pay for it.
Speaker 1: What can we do to help you, guys? And one
Speaker 1: thing you can do that we would appreciate is go
Speaker 1: to iTunes and leave a rating in a review for us.
Speaker 1: That makes it big, big difference in keeping us up
Speaker 1: there in the rankings, which means more people find stuff
Speaker 1: you should know after they listen to Cereal, they'll just say, well, geez,
Speaker 1: there's other podcasts in.
Speaker 2: The world, what is this podcast?
Speaker 1: So ratings and reviews really help us out and it
Speaker 1: doesn't cost you anything but a few minutes. Be honest.
Speaker 1: We're not saying go leave us some great review, but
Speaker 1: go leave us a great review. You said it and
Speaker 1: told tell one person about stuff you should know. We
Speaker 1: would appreciate that too. Turn somebody onto the show, and
Speaker 1: that's it. That's our version of a pledge drive.
Speaker 2: They wow, we did that once every three years. No,
Speaker 2: not very obnoxious and it lasts forty seconds.
Speaker 1: All right, So on to listener mail. This is from
Speaker 1: my sister in law.
Speaker 2: Actually, oh yeah, there's some nepotism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jenny. Jenny Bryant, she mentioned in the homeschool episode
Speaker 1: homeschooled her kids for a little while and she sort
Speaker 1: of corrected me. Loved the homeschooling episode. Guys. One very
Speaker 1: big trend these days in the homeschooling community is what Abby,
Speaker 1: my niece does, which is hybrid homeschooling. So two to
Speaker 1: three days a week she is at school and then
Speaker 1: the rest of the time she is a plant. She's
Speaker 1: not a plant. The rest of the time she's a
Speaker 1: home So she says it's a great option with curriculum
Speaker 1: provided and new topics ought at school and then worked
Speaker 1: out at home. Any of these schools are accredited making
Speaker 1: getting into college, including Ivy League schools, hassel Free and
Speaker 1: Abby School has sports teams, homecoming. Abby's actually an excellent
Speaker 1: volleyball player. Yeah, Beta club, newspaper staff, all the good stuff.
Speaker 1: The flexibility is great for families, and we are huge
Speaker 1: fans of how the hybrid approach prepares students for college
Speaker 1: by allowing them time outside of class to manage their
Speaker 1: work and life schedules.
Speaker 2: So that's from Jenny Nice. It's actually Jenny via text over.
Speaker 1: The first listener mail via text.
Speaker 2: How did you print that out? Did you retype it
Speaker 2: and print it? Oh dude, are you serious? You can
Speaker 2: print from texts?
Speaker 1: No, you just copy pasted to an email.
Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah, yeah, I forgot about that method. How
Speaker 2: in the world did you do that with your thoughts?
Speaker 2: I have a niece who is excellent at volleyball too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, how old?
Speaker 1: We should get them together, James, I don't know ten
Speaker 1: to eleven, Okay, something like that. Abby just turned thirteen,
Speaker 1: so they're.
Speaker 2: Oh, maybe they face all up against one another.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Is she in Atlanta?
Speaker 2: Yes, she's up in Canton. You never know where's Abby.
Speaker 1: She's in Roswell. But they I think with volleyball they
Speaker 1: kind of have played all over the state.
Speaker 2: It'd be bizarre if they play each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll just see each other at a match one day,
Speaker 1: on opposite sides of the court with our arms folded.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what else?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else?
Speaker 2: Well, like Chuck said, go leave us a review. And
Speaker 2: if you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 2: can tweet to us at sysk podcast. You can join
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Speaker 2: You can email us, We still do that. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: can't text me and stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com
Speaker 2: and has always joined us at our home on the web,
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this,
Speaker 2: and thousands of other topics. Visit HowStuffWorks dot com.