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