Class7 - Introduction to The Scientific Method

Introduction to The
Scientific Method
LCD 105 – Class 7 – Professor Nathacia

Before we begin…
Let’s look back last week.

(i) In what extent this language is different from animal
communication systems?
• Formal: Creativity; Generative (system designed to be fruitful)
• Biological: Genetics (FOXP2); language physiology (visual,
hearing, and vocal apparatuses, brain); exaptation;
• Psychological: Recursion; complexity; memory.
(Human) Language: three aspects

Summary
» To be able to study such a complex object as Language, we need to
assume a point of view;
» The point of view is made based on what our goals are;
» Psycholinguistics aims to understand and explain how language is
acquired, how we process language in our minds, and how our
language is different from other animals systems of communication;
» Therefore, we have an approach to language focused on the formal,
the biological and the psychological aspects of language;
» Based on those, Language is an abstract structured system in the
mind, a faculty of the mind, specifically human;
» Language system is a structure generator;
» Language structure is articulated and organized in levels;
» Each level has its distinctive units and system specifications to
organization of the structure;

Let’s start our new journey!

Class7 - Introduction to The Scientific Method

What is the origin of science?
And the origin of scientific thought?
“The start of all sciences is the
amusement of things be as they are.”
- Aristotle

Science?
Humans have this hunger for knowledge.
What are we?
Why are we here?
Wiki?Youtube?
Questioning is the best way to get to knowledge.
All sorts of questions have been done by all
societies: the answers vary through History

Philosophy seeks an answer to validate as the
Truth.
Philosophers are those who haven’t lost the
ability to be amazed by the things: virgin eyes
make us apt to questioning.
“I think; therefore I am”: Thinking = to judge, to
establish new connections, to seek for solutions
(rationalize).
Science and philosophy

Truth: is defined by its lastingness
through time. (History)
Truth or Absolute Truth?

• Until 600 b.C., all questions from human kind
were answered mythically.
• A myth is a tale of divine figures (or spiritual
entities, or of an upper nature) that aims
explaining why life is as it is.
• Oral Tradition.
The Myth era

“In the beginning, there was just water. All the animals lived above it and
the sky was overcrowded. They were all curious about what was beneath
the water and one day Dayuni'si, the water beetle, volunteered to explore
it. He explored the surface but could not find any solid ground. He
explored below the surface to the bottom and all he found was mud
which he brought back to the surface. After collecting the mud, it began
to grow in size and spread outwards until it became the Earth as we
know it.
After all this had happened, one of the animals attached this new land to
the sky with four strings. The land was still too wet so they sent the great
buzzard from Galun'lati to prepare it for them. The buzzard flew down
and by the time that he reached the Cherokee land he was so tired that
his wings began to hit the ground. Wherever they hit the ground a
mountain or valley formed.
The animals then decided that it was too dark, so they made the sun and
put it on the path in which it still runs today.”
Myth of Creation – Cherokee - http://www.crystalinks.com/nativeamcreation.html
The Myth era

• Divine acts upon nature.
• Knowledge leads to control and manipulate nature.
• The wizard => link between nature, humans and spirits
• The World is controlled by super natural forces (that can be
found in animals, plants, wind, etc).
• These supernatural forces are guided or manipulated by
super natural entities (spirits).
• Knowledge = Power
The Myth era

• WRITING -> It has raised questioning upon
myths, and it has shaken myths' truth value;
more fidelity on transmitting information.
• Critical distancing and greater discussion
upon issues.
• Mythological knowledge ====> Knowledge
built from experience and reasoning.
The beginning science

THE EMERGENCE OF HYPOTHETICAL
THOUGHT
• Due to the advance of mathematical sciences;
• Astronomy is one of the first sciences -> interest
in the unknown;
• Egypt: Advance of medical sciences

• Natural events start to be credited to natural
causes.
• The scientific point of view is not more logic
than the mythological one (it is just a matter of
different premises.
• The scientific point of view contributes in a
more effective way to the aggregation of
knowledge, and in predicting and controlling the
natural world.

• The scientific thought is credited to the Ancient Greece, approximately
at VI century b.C.
• Philosophers of Nature: Bounced from dogmatic thought of myths to
scientific thought based on skepticism.
• The dogmatic thought puts the Ideas as superior to what can be
observed.
• The skeptical thought puts what can be observed as superior to the
Ideas.
• Socrates: consolidation of scientific thought through scientific
evidence, that is, an observed fact (empirical) that can be replicated.
• Greece: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Geography e Paleontology.

It is needed that we observe the
nature surrounding us in order
to measure it. That way we will
be able to understand the things
we face in the World.
Aristotle

• Experiments: METHOD being developed.
• Europe: Development of education (teaching broads minds,
questioning being supported).
Middle ages
The beginning of Modern Science
• Galileo Galilei (1564 — 1642) is the founder of Modern Science. He is
the theorist of scientific method and of autonomy of scientific research.
• Since Galileo, science doesn’t seek the essence of things, but their
function.
• The Scientific Revolution established science as responsible for
knowledge growth.
• Technology advance plays a core role on Science advance.

A heavier object falls in a
............ speed than a
lighter object.
Aristotle

A heavier object falls in a
FASTER speed than a
lighter object.
Aristotle

A heavier object in free fall will always have
the same acceleration as a lighter object,
despite gravity force being greater in
heavier objects. If we control the shape of
the objects, they will arrive at the ground at
the same time, even if one weights 1
kilogram and the other weights 10 kilogram.
Galileo Galilei

W=mx g
g=9,8 m/s
Same acceleration = same speed
same speed + same height = same
falling duration
Scientific method visualizing
conditions (including the non-
apparent ones) and discerning
their effects.
Galileo Galilei

There is spontaneous generation,
Abiogenesis, from an active
principle/agent.
Aristotle

Any type of life can only come
from another live thing.
Method with control condition.
Francesco Redi

“Do not believe in anything simply because you
have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply
because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is found
written in your religious books. Do not believe in
anything merely on the authority of your teachers
and elders. Do not believe in traditions because
they have been handed down for many
generations. But after observation and analysis,
when you find that anything agrees with reason
and is conducive to the good and benefit of one
and all, then accept it and live up to it”
- Buddha

Class7 - Introduction to The Scientific Method

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