AoK2: Natural Sciences -- Lesson 2

Thank you for welcoming so warmly Mr. Cotton's class today.

The AoK2 focus of today's lesson was on the scientific method:

• What is it?
• What are its elements?
• How does it guide the pursuit of knowledge in the Natural Sciences?

We used an adapted 'Monty Python' clip to develop our understanding of the scientific methods. The wikipedia entry refers to the 'scientific method' as:

• the body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.

The wikipedia entry goes on to outline the 8 steps in the scientific method:

1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
3. Form hypothesis (from Monty Python: express as If... then... statement)
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis (from Monty Python: consider matters of validity -- i.e. study conducted supports conclusion reached -- and reliability -- i.e. consistency)
7. Publish results
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

In the process, we built on last week's conclusions -- namely, that knowledge in the natural sciences relies on sense perception, reason (both inductive and deductive), and experience -- and saw the important role played by imagination and creativity in the scientific method.

For Lesson 3, you are now to react to one of the two texts (i.e. either 'Octavian Nothing' chapter excerpt or 'Madness or genius' news article) handed-out at the end of the lesson. Specifically, your post should answer this two-part question:

1. What 'picture' of the natural sciences do you get from your chosen text? Be specific.
2. To what extent does this 'picture' cohere (i.e. match) your experiences with and understandings of the natural sciences? How and why? Be specific.

Your post should be in two paragraphs and run about 400 words in total. To make your post successfully persuasive, and to convince readers of your point of view, be sure to: PERERR -- i.e.

• POINT -- make it clear what you're talking about
• EXAMPLE -- provide evidence
• RETELL -- describe/rephrase/paraphrase in your own words your evidence
• EXPLANATION -- explain more fully your evidence
• RELATE -- connect your explanation and evidence to the question at hand
• REFLECT -- inject your voice: 'I feel/think/believe/can see...'

Please post your response to the blog by Tuesday, February 29th.

Natural Sciences - Karriena

“Everything you have learned as ‘obvious’ becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe.” (Buckminster Fuller, 1895-1983)

Everything that we know isnt as obvious as it appears to be after studying the universe.

I think that this quote means that the universe is so complicated there is so much more to it than we can imagine which is beyond our normal thinking and that if you do study it everything that we see as obvious will appear to be more complicated than it looks. For example if you asked an obvious question: What colour is an apple? The obvious answer would be Red but apples come in Red and Green. After studying the universe you may see more depth to the apple like how does it appear to be Red? and what makes it that colour?. You'll begin to think of bigger questions with obvious answers.

AoK 2 - Natural Sciences: Cole Pamuk

AoK 2 - Natural Sciences: Cole Pamuk

“Everything you have learned as ‘obvious’ becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe.”

I think the meaning of this quote is to understand that when we were young, we learn the basic skills we need to know to survive and as we begin to understand things more as we grow, we understand that they are no so simple as there is very important reasons behind what goes on.

I agree with this quote because I feel that as we begin to get older and understand things more, we realize that they go into much more depth than we may think. For example, With sense percieption when we begin to see sweat on someone, we can logically understand with personal experience and knowledge that when you sweat, you are hot, this is to say that we sweat when we get hot or are working. This is simple, and this is what we understand when we are young from experiences, but as futher research and understanding into this field shows us that it is infact not so simple as to why we sweat but it seems so simple, we get hot and a watery salty substance appears on our bodies, but how does this get through our skin? and how does our body know to do this or how does our body know that this will cool us down? With this we understand what is obvious becomes not so obvious because we do not know the reasoning behind it, this is why we understand things more easily from personal experience and we think that it is simple because it has happened to us, but behind the scenes something very complex is going on to make these things happen, how is the world round? are you kidding? its flat....look im walking straight along it and into the distance we can see that it remains flat and unchanged? How romantic, the stars are out tonight? What is that white thing in the sky? Its just a star... We think that it is just a star, but, it is very complex to understand what it really is and why it is there.

In conclusion, Personal Experience contributes to what we think we know quite vastly, but as we get older and realize why things happen and why things are there, we begin to understand it is a very complex cycle as to why things happen and nothing, nothing at all, is quite so obvious once you have fully understood it.

A0K 2 : Natural Sciences - Alysa Wootten

Leo Tolstoy quotes, "Science does not tell us how to live." (1828-1910)

In response to whats been said by Leo Tolstoy many years ago, I would say hes correct as I myself don't believe it either, that "science TELLS us how to live", that is. Science tells us allot of things about the world and teaches us how to live to a certain extent. But "living" I believe is something only we can do ourselves and nothing can tell us how to fulfill that. Science however basically does make up our minds, so I suppose it depends on the way you look at the way he's using the word "live" as there are more than 1 interpretations/approaches that you could take to it. Science has been the result of many developments in the world, like technology over the years which can make our lives easier and control it in a way, but when it comes down to it its whats inside that counts. "Money cant buy everything", and usually science and developments come with expenses!

AOK2: Natural Science Ming Fung

"As a matter of historical fact, the history of science is, by and large, a history of progress" .
(Karl Popper, 1902-1994)

In this quote, Popper is expressing the fact that the history of science is the history of human progresss. As science is something that helps humankind to advance and survive; we can see in different ages, as science progresses, our life changes as well.

For example, humankind had only discovered copper, gold and silver, as they were the only metals that exsisted as an element. Not until science advanced, we discovered fire making us able to burn and extract metals from its ore. These metals helped us to forge weapons, make items to hunt inorder to survive. This progress did not stop, when the compound Silicon dioxide which is glass was discovered, it provided us with intruments like test tubes and etc for use to do different experiments exploring other different elements and theories about matter.

As science may well be the biggest achievement of humankind, science enchances our progress, which its history would show the very reasons of our progress and events happened. Like the haber process was invented for military use, however is now used for fertilliser which we have benefitted socially and economically.

Jacqui.W - Natural Sciences

"Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called a science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house." (Henri Poincare, 1854-1912)

I think what Poincare is trying to tell us here is that Science is something that is based on facts and the ideas and concepts of it are developed upon these facts. However, if we just have facts that we don’t relate to each other and explain it, this cannot conclude to be Science because the point is that Science is something developed and put into order and made sense of. There has to be a reason behind everything and (for example) why you decided that these 2 specific facts related to each other.

An example in life could even be as simple as a spray can. A spray can releases gas and the nozzle gets cold after this. This is a fact worldly known by most people. Simply by looking at this fact, there is nothing related to science at all. But if we explain things, go into detail and link the fact to something to explain it, it can become science. By explaining that, within a spray can, there is a liquid form of the gas that will be released. When we press down on the nozzle, it causes a reaction to take place, changing the liquid into a gas and being released. This chemical reaction takes in energy in order to break the bonds, changing it into a gas state and the change in energy here is positive therefore it is an endothermic reaction, causing the nozzle to be cold as the taking in of energy causes the nozzle to be less hot.

I agree with Poincare as Science in general is a very organised and well structured subject. If there is no order or explanation in Science, it makes it hard to understand and loses the meaning of it.

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

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

This quotation can be retold as, this world is so complex and perfect to the minutest scientific detail, that it is virtually impossible to understand and learn everything about it.

Interpreting the quote by Albert Einstein highlights the precision and flawlessness of the world. I would have to agree with him, the tinniest detail existing on the planet will hold a purpose and explanation for it. Einstein then explains through his use of word “comprehensible” that everything tangible existing relies on a logical explanation, a scientific reason. This is what causes perplexity and becomes hard to believe. Photosynthesis for example, seemed like a relatively straightforward procedure in primary school, this is how the plant makes food. Although as I further learned there was a whole procedure involving just light and carbon dioxide. Who we are today; how tall we are, the colour of our hair, our eyes, to some extent our personality, was determined by our DNA material before we were even the size of a fist.

As a biology student, learning the intricate details of the human body and existing organisms I have to keep convincing myself that it isn’t fiction!

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

Robert Win - Natural Sciences

“Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called a science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house.” (Henri Poincare, 1854-1912)

Here Poincare is saying that Science is everywhere and part of everything and that Science is not just a concept but physical reality. He also is saying that Science is the simplified and organised form of information and facts, and it is this organisaton and simplification which defines science from just information. This sentance was probably used to explain to ordinary people the definition of Science by Poincare, during his lifetime, as science was still conducted with knowledge and control by only a small amount of people at that time (scientists).

This statement, that science is part of and involved in everything, can be demonstrated by the act of throwing a ball at a target. If a child were to throw a ball, there would be no science here through the childs eyes, and the child would likely miss the target, and if the child was asked how it all happend scientifically, he/she would probably be confused by the question. This is because the child is unable to organise and simplify the information he/she receives through sense perseption, and has little to no past experience or understanding, advanced education to understand how the ball was able to be released and travel . The child is unable to organise and structure the information received, because of missing key factors (education, experience, development).

Through the mind of a physician, the ball being thrown at a target would be analysed and all the factors involving the range, speed, direction of a ball would be estimated and pre planned before and during the actual throw, because the physicisan has experience, education, and has physically developed which allows him/her to use his sense perception and uses all these to organise the information (which is the basis of scienece) received to be able to accurately throw the ball and hit the target.

The physcian structures his infomation, the child does not.

William Wong : Natural Sciences

“Science does not tell us how to live." (Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910)

Leo Tolstoy being a philosopher and a notable novelist believes according to this quote that science and the rules pertaining from it do not answer the question of life. Why we can exist when something clearly cannot come from nothing? However he believes that religion can answer this question.

Another aspect of this quotation is how science does not help humans to live through life happily through various scientific systems, for example modern society or even technology. Humans are not able to peacefully live and interact together in a community. However I disagree, as sociology, the study of the origin, development, organization, and functioning of human society, have created architecture that is constantly improving to address bodies of individuals living as members of a community. Other sciences, such as Psychology has helped understand the human mind and their behavior leading to breakthroughs in attitudes and methods in living life.

AoK 2 - Natural Sciences: Chloe Chan

“Everything you have learned as ‘obvious’ becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe.”

The things we have found out and labeled as understandable in the world begins to get harder to understand and more ambiguous the deeper we dig (into explaining the world).

I think this quote is trying to say that in our environment when we were younger we slowly developed our understanding of the world around us and in developing we began to reason logically, and this soon become common sense or in this case ‘obvious’. But in studying science (an understanding of our world), the theories proposed are not definite as there is no real proof of the theories existence as most theories are only a build on logic upon logic.

Taking the existence of atoms and its structure as an example, atoms cannot be seen and it is only assumed that they exist as they explain or fit in with every experiment initiated to test their existence, and every other finding before and after it. Therefore the reasoning used behind the theory is something obvious but the actual existence of this theory is not as obvious as there is no firm proof.

AoK 2: Natural Sciences- Yixia Gu

“The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.” (Albert Einstein, 1879-1955)

What I interpret Einstein to be saying with this quote is how we humans are awestruck by the fact that we can understand the world. In prehistoric times, the world to us and was an enigma. At present time, we have been provided with the answers to these puzzles and speculations, thanks to the subject of Science- its progression and discoveries which we have used as a tool to come into closer contact with nature and its elements.

The once most ‘incomprehensible’ things about the world and the universe can luckily now be understood. Take the principle of gravity for example: before the apple dropped on Sir Issac Newton’s head, people would have seen things falling to the ground and wondered why they couldn’t jump infinitely high and still wouldn’t realize that gravity is a natural force that prevents things floating away from the surface of the earth. Thus, it was through numerous extrapolations and theories, trials and scientific experimentations that we are in a position to comprehend the world, nevertheless bearing in mind that there is still a copious amount of things scientists can’t come to grips with.

AoK 2: Natural Sciences - Hey Tou Chiu

"Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called a science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house." (Henri Poincare, 1854-1912)

The quote above basically tries to explain how science cannot be defined as a ‘collection of facts’ in the same way as how a pile of bricks cannot be called a house. Henri Poincare tries to tell us how facts by themselves are not science because they involve much more. Science includes creative thinking, wild imagination, data collection, experiments/tests. However, this is not to say that facts are not needed.

I find myself agreeing with him. I believe that scientists investigate on something new to them or something that they are curious about by forming hypotheses of things. More importantly, they use the existing knowledge and facts that they have to prove or discover more about things unknown to them. Like the ‘black box’ activity, the class did the same thing in order to find out what was inside the ‘box’. The calculation, observations, guesses, and imagination is what allowed us to identify some of the items that were inside the parcel. I think that this whole process is what defines science.

AoK 2 : Natural Sciences – Norbert Poon

"Science does not tell us how to live." (Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910)

To me, I agree Tolstoy’s quote the most, and has experience to his quote. I think it is saying sciences made our lives exist, it makes our living easier, but it doesn’t tell us the full story of how we can make it as good as our live can be. For example, our science is one of the most integrated working systems in the whole universe. Not even a space shuttle works better. We have all different kinds of hormones, cells, and other chemicals that enable us survive in treacherous conditions like being in the extreme cold. It made our lives easier, as we can adapt to different conditions. We have great technology advancements, that makes our living easier. But we often can not find one best solution to make our living very good. We have to use science to figure out what is the best WE CAN FIND. There must be better solutions then we can find. Science make our living better, but doesn’t tell us the best way to live it.

AoK2 : Natural Sciences - Jason Herrera

"Science does not tell us how to live." (Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910)

Leo Tolstoy is a famous writer most notable for his writing War and Peace. What he meant by the quote is that Science is not the tool for us to explore and discover ourselves and the enviroment around us.

Tolstoy, as an Othodox Christian believes that faith is the only way that life can be rationalised. This can be shown in one of his works, A Confession. The book talks about the two big questions in life, "What will come of my life?" and "What is the meaning of life?". In the book, Tolstoy attempts to find answers to these questions through science and other areas of knowledge. He stated that only religion holds the key to the answers.

I do not agree to what Tolstoy said in the quotation not only because natural sciences have been a great tool for humans to understand more about life; but also the fact that it helped us to acquire clues to answer the two big questions to life Tolstoy stated.

"What will come of my life?" and "What is the meaning of life?"

AoK2: Natural Sciences -- Lesson 1

Guiding questions:

1. How are perception, reason, and experience used to determine knowledge in the Natural Sciences?


2. What is (a) scientific method?

I hope you enjoyed our 'Black Box' activity. In getting you to collaborate and predict what 'it' was, as well as what 'it' contained, you worked through an inductive process to illustrate the nature of scientific activity (as opposed to the subject/knowledge of science) -- i.e. you observed, thought, induced, explained, inferred, tested your hunches (hypotheses), justified your thoughts, etc. until you arrived at the most plausible account to answer the knowledge issue based on the evidence at hand.

To build on this introduction to AoK Natural Sciences and ready yourself for Lesson 2, you are to bring and post two things before next lesson -- i.e. please...

1. bring TWO advertisements that use the language of science in order to market their products (and be prepared to talk about them); and


2. post your reaction to one of the five quotations below by Tuesday, Feb. 19th -- your post should retell the quotation (i.e. put it in your own words), reflect your understanding of its meaning, and relate the quotation to your life by giving an example that illustrates your interpretation of it.

• "Science does not tell us how to live." (Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910)
• “As a matter of historical fact, the history of science is, by and large, a history of progress.’’ (Karl Popper, 1902-1994)
• “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.” (Albert Einstein, 1879-1955)
• “Everything you have learned as ‘obvious’ becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe.” (Buckminster Fuller, 1895-1983)
• “Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called a science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house.” (Henri Poincare, 1854-1912)
  

AoK 1: Mathematics - Jason Herrera

Baking Bread
In this baking the bread example, Ian Stewart addressed the issue between invention and discovery. He stated that although it is important to distinguish the difference between inventing and discovering, he said that everything requires both of them. He then moved on to saying that "Mathematics has an internal structure of logical deduction that allows it to grow in unexpected ways." This means that new ideas can be generated to cover 'holes' in various theories. Also, he said that the origin of mathematics derived from the real world, and that the abstraction of mathematics came from reality itself. So basically, he is emphasizing the fact that mathematics was "always there"

Lottery Illusion
In this section, Stewart compare the Fibonacci numbers with biology. He stated the fact that the number of petals in a flower corresponds to the Fibonacci numbers, may suggests mathematics is inherent in nature. He also said that our minds tend to look for mathematical patterns, which sprang to theories like Newton's Law of Gravity and quantum physics. He then moved on to saying that "Mathematics is our way of understanding certain features of nature. It is a construct of the human mind, but we are part of nature, made from the same kind of matter, existing in the same kinds of space and time as the rest of the Universe." Which further connotes that mathematics is inherent. Stweart then moves onto a bigger picture, in whether aliens (if they exist) have the same kind of maths as us. But he then summarise that mathemtics is different in every enviroment.

Mathematics Lesson 1

Is mathematics the grand design for the Universe, or merely a figment of the human imagination?

Ian Stewart is trying to get us to think about Mathematics in general, and where it orignated from, is it out there, and do we have to figure it out, or do we make it up as we go along, these axioms together with using language percieption, we come to conclude that using language, language of the maths, many varied people have figured out various things such at pythagoras and i am convinced with this that, pythagoras does work, but we are yet to figure out that there is infact something that it does not work on, it is not infinate.

Lottery Illusion
In this, He is trying to get us to believe that Biology is maths, he thinks that suchs things like petals in a flower are fibonacci numbers such as the first two equal the next one, and from what i know about the mysteriousness about this world and the depth of biology, i agree with him, biology can be maths related such as when you are trying to work out the size of such cells, in MM or CM and you need to relate to maths to change your answer from MM to CM and so on, but such things in biology, such as how a plant grows has nothing to do with maths unless you think about it mathematically, how much water did we add? this effected the growth why? the cells downed etc and I think that we will never truly know everything, thats why theories and myths still live, because noone can truly prove their point because someone always has a better explanation.

Lottery Illusion- Karriena

Lottery Illusion is about how numbers relate to the way we behave/biology. The example given is that a flower has the number of petals which adds up to the Fibonacci numbers. It basically prooves that maths relates to your daily lives and that different numbers can send out different vibrations.
Humans have a tendency to link our daily lives to number patterns by having this tendency it has led to a number of laws on mathematics and the universe. But any patterns we think we see are illusions.
Human minds develope this tendency as we adapt to the real world for survival skills. "Mathematical minds cannot evolve in an unmathematical universe." If maths had nothing to then it would eventually die out.
Everyone has their own way of picking out these patterns and solving equations, "but i doubt that they would have anything like the pythagoras theorem", people adapt to the world in different ways and use maths for different reasons.

Jacqui.W: Herd of Elephants & Baking Bread

Herd of Elephants
Stewart believes that mathematics are simply problems that interlink us humans between the world of maths and the real world. The solutions to maths may answer something that isn't related to maths but something just as real and important but physically unrelated. By using "flow" and "backflow" Stewart gives us the impression that the maths problems are ongoing in a never ending nature's cycle, like tidal waves.
Stewart addresses maths as an abstraction and he strongly believes that human mathematics is so complicated that it's hard to grasp the idea or even write it down on paper. He says that the structure is totally impenetrable therefore being too much info for us to take in and that our behaviour is even related to mathematics being applied to our constituent atoms.
I agree with Ian Stewart and that mathematic problems can be related to something else other than maths, as maths does relate to lots of daily activities we do. However, I disagree with Ian Stewart when he says mathematics can relate to our behaviour as I don't think it can be. I think our behaviour is dependant on our mind and heart to decide, not human mathematics.

Baking Bread
Ian Stewart compares Mathematics to Baking Bread as he mentions that Mathematics starts in the real world, therefore firstly he compares it to an activity in real world and secondly to express his thoughts more easily. Stewart brings attention to whether things in life are a discovery or invention and the different cases in Mathematics between discovery and invention. Stewart says people often oversee the most important things of Mathematics, 'significance, simplicity and elegance'. This could be related to baking as often known, to bake bread, the amounts of ingrediants used must be significant and exact for the perfect texture and taste. The more simple the ingredient is, usually the more delicious and easier the bread turns out to be. Lastly elegance could relate to the feeling and pride gotten from the entire process and of completing and successfully baking bread.
When Ian Stewart says, "Mathematics has an internal structure of logical deduction that allows it to grow in unexpected ways" I think not only does he apply this concept to Mathematics but he's relating this directly to baking bread as well. The difference between Mathematics and baking bread is that for Mathematics, we can generalize theories to make our calculations easier but for baking bread, this is impossible and it must be done the long, hard way and there's no easy way to it because if there was, the bread wouldn't turn out as good anyway.

Baking bread and lottery illusion

The baking bread section suggests that in any area of human activity there is neither "invention nor discovery" but a "complex context-dependent mix of both." Ian Stewart compares the technique of baking bread to mathematics, the ingredients- or in another sense the basic number skills, once you have ditermined and made assumptions , then everything "flows" and is "predetermined'.
He later goes on to argue that math in a universe makes abstact sense. Hence since the abstraction came out of reality , it's no surprise if it applies to reality.
- generalising theories help it to apply to differential equations and suddenly you find applications again, but to dynamics, not to bakery.
The authors use of rhetorical questions "what is medicine?" "where does it live?" "is it invented or discovered?' has a persuasive element, as the reader wonders the posibilities of the answer.

Lottery Illusion
- mathematical patterns are evident in nature and biology, for example the number of petals on a flower are part of the "fibonancii numbers"
- seeking out mathematical patterns is biologically innate in us, as Stewart calims our minds havr a dendency to seet out these.
- this "natural" ability has led to the discovery of Newton's law of gravity and the equations of quantum mechanics in additon theres astrology and the great Pyramid's, which examplify the accuracy and measurements, human kind could achieve.
- Although, what mathematics tells us about choosing lottery nubmers is that any patterns we think we see are illusions.
- He then asks the reader how does our mind develop this tendency for pattern seeking.
- Mathematics is our way of understanding ceartain features of nature.
- It is in our brain to think mathematically
- Only Geometer God can create beins able to come up with geometery.