Lesson 1.2 The Characteristics of Scientific Knowledge Grade 8

Dr. Percy Lavon Julian started his scientific journey by trying to separate different compounds in plants. Through his discoveries, he was able to develop and mass produce many life saving medicine and technologies.

• Explain what is involved in Scientific investigations

  • Discuss what characterizes science and its methods

• Compare and Contrast Scientific vs. Nonscientific views

What do Scientific Investigations involve?

• ​In additions to the skills scientists practice, a scientist needs to have a specific attitude toward their work

  • Creative, honest, curious, open-minded​

  • Need to be willing to accept new ideas, but also be skeptical

    • Skepticism: having an attitude of doubt​

      • Helps keep scientists from accepting faulty ideas blindly

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What do Scientific Investigations involve?

• Scientists also need to preform investigations in a scientific way

  • Collecting evidence and using that evidence to make inferences and conclusions

Collecting Evidence

• Data: Facts, figures, and other evidence collected during a scientific investigation

  • Empirical evidence: Data collected using scientific processes that describe particular observations​

• All scientific investigations involve collections of empirical evidence

  • During the crow study, researchers wrote down their observations of the crows in notebooks as they walked

• After data is collected, scientists carefully look through it to find patterns

  • Patterns can help in making good inferences​

Objective and subjective reasoning

• Objective Reasoning: Reasoning that is based on evidence

  • Can't be easily disproven

  • Example: Crows have two wings, so they can fly

• Subjective reasoning: Reasoning based on feelings or personal values

  • Can be argued or debated​

  • Crows are ugly birds, so they aren't very smart

​Science vs Pseudoscience

• Pseudoscience: a set of beliefs based on science, but makes conclusions based without objective reasoning

  • Can be confused with legitimate science

    • Astronomy is a real science that studies and observes the planets and stars.

    • Astrology is a pseudoscience that guess how peoples lives will go based on the movement of the stars​