Science, Knowledge and Wisdom
Quiz
What is a science all about?
- Science is just a body of knowledge, facts about the physical world.
- Science involves using the scientific method to find out new knowledged.
- Science is both knowledge and a means of acquiring new knowledge.
- Science is everything we know about the physical and mental universe.
What is the "Scientific Method?"
- A formal set of instructions for "doing" science.
- Any method that has science as its main focus.
- The method all good scientists use to carry out research.
- One of many ways of looking for new knowledge.
Why is understanding important in science?
- Knowing something is good but understanding why the knowledge works is even better.
- If you don't know how to "use" the knowledge in some way, it's not very, well, useful.
- Understanding how something works leads to new questions and possible applications.
- Understanding always occurs when you acquire new knowledge.
Science must be done without any emotional component.
- True, since emotion clouds judgement.
- True, and most scientists are pretty much robots in how they work.
- False since scientists are (in fact) real people who can make mistakes.
- False because without emotions to motivate the hard work involved, no one would do science.
New ideas, new questions about the world come from rational thinking.
- Most people believe this so it must be true.
- Maybe, but all of them?
- There's more involved than just rational thought.
- Reasoning helps guide our thoughts but rarely generates a totally new idea.
Experiments are the only way to understand the physical world.
- Well, they are definitely important, but "only way?"
- Understanding results from hard thinking and observation as well.
- The physical world exists outside of human awareness and experiments are the only way to connect the two.
- Experiments come from questions that result from observation- looking and thinking about what we see.
What is scientific "wisdom?"
- Being smart about how you do science so you understand what you discover.
- Being wise in developing new experiments to answer questions.
- Using past experience to figure out what to do with new knowledge.
- Being wise about how to use new knowlege safely for common good.
Science and technology are really the same thing.
- Nope, science gives basic knowledge while technology uses that knowledge in some useful way.
- True since they are both based on the same body of knowledge.
- False: technology is engineering while science is, well, science.
- Not true because without new discoveries from science we can have no technological advances.
Isn't science pretty much done finding new knowledge?
- Many people think this so it must be true.
- Science keeps looking back at what we know and forward to find out what we don't, so no.
- I don't think so but I'm not sure why.
- "The more you learn, the more you can learn" applies to science plus life in general.
Why do we need science anymore with technololgy advancing so fast?
- True, and many leaders believe this.
- True because we pretty much know now everything there is to know.
- Bad question: think about it.
- Absolutely not true- without discovery science, new technology can't happen.
All that's needed to do good science is:
- An open mind and the ability to observe.
- Advanced training and degrees in specialized science.
- Creative thinking springing from our subconscious minds.
- A use that solves some important problem in society.
Astrology and extrasensory perception are two areas of scientific study.
- True, since both are part of the physical world.
- False since neither involves the physical universe or can have valid experiments done on them.
- You can't do experiments on astrology but you can on ESP.
- Ture, since any area can be studied using the scientific method.
Doing good science is easy, even children do it.
- Kids do simple science, yes.
- Doing good science requires training and knowledge.
- Science is hard work and combines many different kinds of knowledge, observation, asking questions and designing experiments.
- Yes, and Einstein did excellent science without doing any actual experiments.
Doing good science means you must have a useful hypothesis.
- Not actually; sometimes you just explore and keep your eyes open.
- True because that's part of the scientific method.
- There's interplay between asking questions and thinking about what an experiment will tell you.
- True, and you try to prove your hypothesis right with experiments.