The Natural Sciences

A TOK Area of Knowledge

When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.

Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)

Science is a way of thinking more than it is a body of knowledge.

Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

This Guy (1879-1955)

Science does not tell us how to live.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Science is a way of describing reality; it is therefore limited by the limits of observation, and it asserts nothing which is outside observation.
Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974)

In your journal . . .

What connotations does the word science have for you? Are they positive, negative or mixed?

Still in your journal . . .

How are scientists portrayed in popular culture, such as novels and movies?

Traditional scientific method

Observation Hypothesis Prediction Law Theory

Problems with observation

Selectivity Expectations Expert seeing The observer effect

What role does confirmation bias play in hypothesis?

In your journal . . .

What role does imagination play in science?

Science Awards

Tell me why

Since birds fly far slower than the earth rotates, why dont they get left behind when they fly in the direction of the rotation (west to east)?

Learn these terms on your own

Pseudo-science Rationalist Relativism

Falsification Hypothesis Paradigm

Anomaly Empirical