September 21, 2010 • 17 mins
Civilization relies on science and couldn't exist without it -- but what exactly is science? In this episode, Allison and Robert explore the definition of science, from the questions it can tackle to the methods scientists use in their experiments.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how
stuff works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Alson lamp and the science editor how stuff
works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer
(00:20):
at how stuff works dot com. And uh, we've got
two pretty big podcasts here that are looped together. Basically,
we want to talk about the scientific method. It's been requested, um,
but before we can really talk about scientific method, we
really need to talk about what science is. And that's
what we're gonna be talking about today. Yeah. So so, yeah,
(00:44):
like what what comes to mind when most people think
of science? Do you think lab coats? Yeah, you know, um,
potions that are bubbling explosions, Frankenstein, I'm pree associating here. Yeah,
it often there's often this kind of magical view of it. Yeah,
that it's just kind of it's kind of like modern magic.
(01:05):
And certainly, you know, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic. Right, Um, who said that? Who said that?
It was Clark? Yeah and maybe wrong and you know
you did he did it? Was? It was it was
Arthur Clark. Okay, it's actually in that quiz. I did
the quiz on who said it's Sagan or Creighton and
then threw in some extra quotes to throw people off. Um.
(01:29):
But but anyway, yes, science gets uh, it's one of
those things that exists, and it's so big and it's
just around is everywhere. You often often it's kind of
hard to put a finger on exactly what it is,
you know, and defining it helps people to understand it. Um.
I think that science can get caught up in, you know,
as a massive entity, kind of like the media. The
media are doing the scientists are doing that, whereas scientists
(01:52):
are carrying out very disparate experiments on very interesting but
you know, separate causes on everything in the universe, every
thing that's going on in the natural world. So a
bit of a mistake to lump everybody together and to
generalize science. But there are some core concepts that link
science together. Yeah, now, now that is some of these
quotes like what is the Oxford American Dictionary science is? Oh,
(02:15):
start off with a really interesting one. First, science is
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the structure and behavior
of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation. Yeah,
I mean that's pretty straightforward. It's it's kind of wordy,
but yeah, I don't think it gets at the excitement
behind science or the discovery, yeah, or or just like
(02:37):
the power and importance. That's why I really like how
Carl Sagan referred to it as a candle in the dark,
as a truth that illuminates the quote demon haunted world.
You know, Um, this thing that extinguishes superstition and shinds
a light into the dark, explains unknowns, you know. And
it's I tend to like those definitions that see it
as this kind of like expanding thing that's bigger than
(03:01):
all of us, you know, like um, And in thinking
this over before we went in, I kept thinking about
about how it kind of amounts to a kind of
communal intelligence. Yeah. Yeah, because like like even our most
gifted minds can only perceive and accomplish so much, right,
we come up against this thing called cognitive closure, like
the limits of the human mind to understand the universe. Um,
(03:24):
but if you have minds working in concert with each other,
you know, if you have minds picking up where others
left off, standing on the shoulders of giants as who
has it's Sir Isaac Newton put it in moving forward
with this some systematic precision, you know, then it just
expands the limits on what science can accomplish. And it really,
(03:45):
I truly believe it. You know, it becomes something that's
bigger than all of us, something that you know, it's
and that's not scary. That's something that we should be
proud of. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it can be kind
of scary if you think of it the wrong way.
But no, I think in general, it's like it's the Yeah,
on one hand, it's what makes the humans great, but
it has empowered humans to do some pretty horrible things.
(04:05):
But but but either way, it's it's certainly like one
of the, if not the greatest, things about humanity. So
let's round at this section with a couple of quotes
that I really need to get out here. So there's
Oscar Wilde weighing in on science and he says science
is the record of dead religions. Yeah. And then there's
(04:26):
MLK Jr. Who says that science investigates religion, interprets, science
investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power,
religion gives man wisdom, which is controlled. It's pretty good line.
And then of course Einstein, who says, well, science is
a wonderful thing. If one does not have to earn
one's living at it, then em bode well for us,
(04:51):
does it, especially for one of the sciences brightest minds,
rock stars, so to speak. So let's get into some
of these core concepts that define science. Okay, Yeah, and
this is coming from a wonderful article actually on scientific
method by William Harris. Yes are our freelancer extraordinaire. And
and it's there was an old science teacher, Yeah, yeah,
(05:14):
which comes across in his writing. I think, Yeah, I mean,
I I mean, as a science teacher, he's constantly like
taking scientific things, breaking it down for for an audience
that may not be all that receptive at times, I'm sure.
So so yeah, comes across in the article and it's
a really good one, well worth the checking out. But yeah,
I guess we'll just he divided up and do I
think seven parts like seven sort of um you know,
(05:38):
core statements that define what what science is. And I
thought it worked just really well on the page, so
we would would stick to that format here in the
podcast Practicality. Yeah, that's our first one. Let's just throw
it out there. Science is practical and you might think
of this, you know, as learning from textbooks, you know,
hearing a teacher speak, a professor lecture on some subject.
(05:59):
But really it's focused on discovery, and it's discoveries that active,
hands on process. It's not something you know, that's just
isolated to certain scholars tinkering with you know, GC mass
spec and wondering what they're going to find. It's it's
all sorts of people in the lab. Yeah, yeah, people
who practice science for the most part. It's not done
(06:19):
just because of some sort of love of abstraction or something.
It's it's you know, what can we what can we get?
Will ask some some reasonable questions about the world, and
then let's find a way to answer them. And I
should mention that, of course we do think of scientists
being in the lab, but they're very much in the
field too. Yeah, like the lab is important as what
we'll get to when we start talking about the actual
methods you know involved. But but yeah, science, science is
(06:43):
out there. It's not disconnected from the world. Yeah, it's
a search for information. It's this really this journey, this
quest to explain how information fits together in meaningful ways, right, right,
you know, you get the UM, the guys, the theoretical
physicists out there, and then you get all of Einstein's
adherents and they're we're out there working to solve that
(07:05):
big old physics mystery. Yeah, so let's let's hit up
point number two, and that is science is based on observation.
And this is key. It's not again, it's not just
guys in every tower going I bet frogs do such
and such because of X. No, it's like people going out,
let's observe frogs. Let's see what the frog does. Now,
let's see I the frog does it again. Let's then
let's see if the frog does it again. And then
let's see what the if the frog does it again
(07:26):
under different circumstances, etcetera. You know, it's it's about observing, right,
and as you get at UM, it's it's about replication
as well. You know, it's about talking to your colleagues. Hey,
this is what I noticed this particular species of frog
could do. And the colleagues says, oh, you know, I'm
not sure about that. Maybe I'll try that experiment, you know,
I'll replicate what you did, or maybe I won't replicate
(07:49):
what you did, maybe my results will be different, maybe
we'll need to take this in a new direction. And
that's another big thing. Um, when we were researching this podcast,
it comes across I think that people can get very
tied up in science pedantic and following these steps and
sure we are going through these different parts of science
and what defines science. But science is creative. Science is innovative. Yes,
(08:09):
it does have core concepts, but nothing set in stone, right. Yeah.
I mean that science has has often involved, you know,
making new discoveries that change centuries old um laws say,
especially pretending to physics. You know, Newton came I mean
not Einstein came along and uh, and he changed the
things that Newton had proposed that had stood the test
(08:31):
of time. It's also important to note that when we're
talking about science, we as a society inform what's going on,
what investigations are being carried out. You know, is there
an outbreak of Westnile virus, then yes, people are going
to be concerned and there will be research port into
investigating the pathology of West Nile virus and uh. And
(08:54):
that kind of leads into point number three, and that
is that data reveals the structure of something. What is
the thing that we're studying, the West nol virus or
a star or you know, you name it. And that
often means breaking down into quantitative data. That means describing
an object numerically um and uh in using some sort
(09:15):
of like a unit of measurement, so you know it's
like girl, yeah, or you know, or just miles per hour,
you know, something as simple as that. You know, we're
breaking we're getting a unit out and then we're busting
out some numbers on it and we're quantifying it. But
quantitative data isn't everything. There's also qualitative data and and
that can be a little bit trickier to interpret, a
little bit more of a time suck to gather. Yeah,
(09:38):
this is point four. But yeah, data can also reveal behavior. Um.
And you know when you're talking about qualitative data, you're
really talking about that something that's a written description about
an object or an organism. It compliments quantitative data. You know,
it tells you, it gives you really the complete picture.
You know, what is it made of and how does
it behave? Yeah, yeah, this is yeah, it really revolves
(09:59):
around behavior. So it's like, um, we we know what
the frog looks like we've cut it open, we've seen
all the insides, but what's it doing? How does it behave?
Or you know, or just something simple were not as simple,
but something like light for instance, you know, breaking down
what light is and then how light behaves in the universe. Yeah,
so science is also in intellectual pursuit. Yeah, at this
(10:20):
point number five that that Mr Harris makes and this
is just making observation. Collecting data are not the ultimate goals.
Data must be analyzed and used to understand the world
around us. A data point is only that it's just
a data point. It takes you, the scientists, to infer
and draw conclusions and uh, take your research in a
(10:40):
new direction based on what you find. Right again, and
this is important to derive generalizations based on specific observations.
Oh here's here. I like you, and I think a
lot of people have been in this boat. All right,
So my cat, biscuit, if you're listening, you know, here's
a shout out, Hey biscuit, she's not listening. Should never
listened to any podcast totally. She just doesn't even playing
(11:04):
in the house when you're gone. No, but I mean
I asked her about her and she's just like you know.
But anyway, so so what what is she doing if
she's not listening to her podcast? Well that instead of
listening to the podcast, she spends her days like climbing
up next to the window and doing like a lot
of cats meeting at birds? What is what do you
mean by It's not exactly meeting, it's more like, you know,
(11:26):
they kind of make this little noise that the birds,
which you know, and you know, and my wife and
I said around discussing and we're like, well, what does
it mean? Is she's saying I would eat you if
there was not glass here, or she's saying I want
to go to their you know what she saying, I
want to go to there. Yeah, we didn't mention the
meat in our how Cats Work article? Did they not?
I don't think they mentioned the meat. Well that's the
(11:47):
weird thing because like I have always have a heart.
That's like a whole different podcast because I can never
find like really good solid data as to want cats
do any of the things they do. Um, but anyway,
so the cats meeting at birch right, so, um, maybe
all cats meet theater? Do all cats make at birth?
That's a generalization. And then that would be the generalization
that one would would investigate. So Edwin hubbell Um, the
(12:10):
great man behind the Hubble Shift, he observed what he
thought were a nebula speeding away from what was thought
to be the universe's only galaxy. Okay, what kind of
generalization did he get from that? Well, he said, well,
maybe the universe is made of millions of galaxies and
all of them are moving away from each other as
the universe expanded, and and and that was the starting
(12:32):
point for our under a lot of our current understanding
of the universe. Right. So hubbles observation, of course, drew
much more research. And it kind of gets at the
quote that we put in here as a nice little
uh close it out on this point by George Bernard Shaw.
Science it never solves a problem without creating ten more.
YEA and I. And it seems like you you have kids,
(12:54):
So I imagine are they they age yet where they
ask question after question after questions. Okay, so it seems
like the same thing, right, It's like they ask a question,
you answered and that stirs you know, numerous other questions. Yes,
there is an unlimited line of inquiry with children. Well,
the one who can talk and they do they tend
Because that's the other thing too, is like the questions.
(13:14):
Science is about questions getting deeper to right, Like sure, yeah,
I mean definitely. You think about a child's reasoning. Okay,
so here might be an exchange. Um, you ask me
we have to go take a bath now, and the
kid goes, why don't we have to go ahead in bath? Well,
because you know, you played outside today and you got dirty.
(13:36):
And then the kid asked, why did I get dirty? Well,
you know there's a lot of different Wise, I don't
know that she's ever asked why am I dirty? But
it does. Yeah, it just gets deeper and deeper, and
pretty soon you're you know, tackling these huge questions of
you know, religion and science, and like it starts off
to take a bath, and then eventually it's like what
(13:58):
is time? Mother? And like I don't know, here's the
shampo go for speaking of time, You're going time out
unless you get in the bath now. So let's keep
moving on. Yeah, So moving on to point six, And
that's that science makes predictions and here's the thing, and
then then test those predictions using experiments. So like generalizations
(14:19):
are great, Yeah, and they enable us, but they enables
to make those predictions and then test them. And that's key.
Like like, if I was to, uh, you know, the
generalization about all cats meeting at birds, um, I would
you know, if I were gonna investigate that, I would
want to, you know, put it to the test um, Like,
get a whole bunch of cats together, put them through
(14:39):
a rigorous testing to see how they respond to birds
on the other side of glass. You know, which one's
meat at at birds on this side of glass, which
one's meat at moths, which one you know, et cetera.
And you would have to like you and then quantify
all the data, and you have to control for all
the interesting variables going on. There Are there some long
haired cats in the mix, Are there some katies and
some old cat Are some of the cats missing their
(15:01):
eyes so perhaps they don't see the bird? Are they
meeting a different birds? Are all sorts of ways you
could set up this experiment which would probably draw more
experiments and more funding. Cool, Okay, And then finally point
seven science is systematic. Yeah, if you want to check
out why cats are meeting at birds, you really got
(15:22):
to make it systematic. Otherwise no one's going to take
you credibly. It's kind of like going back to the
like scientists is ever expanding thing. I like that. I
sometimes like to think of it in terms of, say,
like imagine an army on a battlefield and they're going
to say, take this next hill, you know, or achieve
this next tactical victory. They like point to the place
(15:42):
on the map. It's like, all right, we're going to
we're going to take this area. And then they have
to sit down and figure out strategy. Right, how do
we take that area? You know? How do you We
can't just march out into it. You can have to
have a plan and uh. And that's part of the
systematic aspect of science. Like science is like a finely
tuned army, you know, And it's with ever changing tactics,
ever changing tactics. You know. Well some some core tactics
(16:05):
that remained us sitting the same, which we're going to
get to in the next in the in the next
podcast scientific methods. Okay, the tactics can change, but some
remain true form. But also I mean goals differ, of course,
the laws change. Yeah. I like your battlefield experiment. I'll
give it to you. That's one of my more favorite analogies.
It doesn't it doesn't fall aparties quickly with some of them. Yeah,
(16:25):
So yeah, that's what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna
talk about how all these parts fit together in the
scientific method for our next podcast, So be sure to
listen in as we get into, uh what the scientific
method is. And I bet you guys probably have a
good idea. And we will also be taking you through
a little experiment that we devised on our own involving
perhaps some putting pops and somebody's stealing them. We'll see
(16:50):
you tune in next time. Yeah, And if you guys
have a favorite science quote that you want to share
with us, be sure to send it to us at
science stuff at how stuff works dot com. And if
you want to go over to the site and check
out Bill Harris's article on scientific method, go ahead and
do that too. Thanks for listening for more on this
(17:13):
and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
Yeah, welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how
stuff works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to the podcast.
This is Alson lamp and the science editor how stuff
works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer
(00:20):
at how stuff works dot com. And uh, we've got
two pretty big podcasts here that are looped together. Basically,
we want to talk about the scientific method. It's been requested, um,
but before we can really talk about scientific method, we
really need to talk about what science is. And that's
what we're gonna be talking about today. Yeah. So so, yeah,
(00:44):
like what what comes to mind when most people think
of science? Do you think lab coats? Yeah, you know, um,
potions that are bubbling explosions, Frankenstein, I'm pree associating here. Yeah,
it often there's often this kind of magical view of it. Yeah,
that it's just kind of it's kind of like modern magic.
(01:05):
And certainly, you know, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic. Right, Um, who said that? Who said that?
It was Clark? Yeah and maybe wrong and you know
you did he did it? Was? It was it was
Arthur Clark. Okay, it's actually in that quiz. I did
the quiz on who said it's Sagan or Creighton and
then threw in some extra quotes to throw people off. Um.
(01:29):
But but anyway, yes, science gets uh, it's one of
those things that exists, and it's so big and it's
just around is everywhere. You often often it's kind of
hard to put a finger on exactly what it is,
you know, and defining it helps people to understand it. Um.
I think that science can get caught up in, you know,
as a massive entity, kind of like the media. The
media are doing the scientists are doing that, whereas scientists
(01:52):
are carrying out very disparate experiments on very interesting but
you know, separate causes on everything in the universe, every
thing that's going on in the natural world. So a
bit of a mistake to lump everybody together and to
generalize science. But there are some core concepts that link
science together. Yeah, now, now that is some of these
quotes like what is the Oxford American Dictionary science is? Oh,
(02:15):
start off with a really interesting one. First, science is
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the structure and behavior
of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation. Yeah,
I mean that's pretty straightforward. It's it's kind of wordy,
but yeah, I don't think it gets at the excitement
behind science or the discovery, yeah, or or just like
(02:37):
the power and importance. That's why I really like how
Carl Sagan referred to it as a candle in the dark,
as a truth that illuminates the quote demon haunted world.
You know, Um, this thing that extinguishes superstition and shinds
a light into the dark, explains unknowns, you know. And
it's I tend to like those definitions that see it
as this kind of like expanding thing that's bigger than
(03:01):
all of us, you know, like um, And in thinking
this over before we went in, I kept thinking about
about how it kind of amounts to a kind of
communal intelligence. Yeah. Yeah, because like like even our most
gifted minds can only perceive and accomplish so much, right,
we come up against this thing called cognitive closure, like
the limits of the human mind to understand the universe. Um,
(03:24):
but if you have minds working in concert with each other,
you know, if you have minds picking up where others
left off, standing on the shoulders of giants as who
has it's Sir Isaac Newton put it in moving forward
with this some systematic precision, you know, then it just
expands the limits on what science can accomplish. And it really,
(03:45):
I truly believe it. You know, it becomes something that's
bigger than all of us, something that you know, it's
and that's not scary. That's something that we should be
proud of. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it can be kind
of scary if you think of it the wrong way.
But no, I think in general, it's like it's the Yeah,
on one hand, it's what makes the humans great, but
it has empowered humans to do some pretty horrible things.
(04:05):
But but but either way, it's it's certainly like one
of the, if not the greatest, things about humanity. So
let's round at this section with a couple of quotes
that I really need to get out here. So there's
Oscar Wilde weighing in on science and he says science
is the record of dead religions. Yeah. And then there's
(04:26):
MLK Jr. Who says that science investigates religion, interprets, science
investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power,
religion gives man wisdom, which is controlled. It's pretty good line.
And then of course Einstein, who says, well, science is
a wonderful thing. If one does not have to earn
one's living at it, then em bode well for us,
(04:51):
does it, especially for one of the sciences brightest minds,
rock stars, so to speak. So let's get into some
of these core concepts that define science. Okay, Yeah, and
this is coming from a wonderful article actually on scientific
method by William Harris. Yes are our freelancer extraordinaire. And
and it's there was an old science teacher, Yeah, yeah,
(05:14):
which comes across in his writing. I think, Yeah, I mean,
I I mean, as a science teacher, he's constantly like
taking scientific things, breaking it down for for an audience
that may not be all that receptive at times, I'm sure.
So so yeah, comes across in the article and it's
a really good one, well worth the checking out. But yeah,
I guess we'll just he divided up and do I
think seven parts like seven sort of um you know,
(05:38):
core statements that define what what science is. And I
thought it worked just really well on the page, so
we would would stick to that format here in the
podcast Practicality. Yeah, that's our first one. Let's just throw
it out there. Science is practical and you might think
of this, you know, as learning from textbooks, you know,
hearing a teacher speak, a professor lecture on some subject.
(05:59):
But really it's focused on discovery, and it's discoveries that active,
hands on process. It's not something you know, that's just
isolated to certain scholars tinkering with you know, GC mass
spec and wondering what they're going to find. It's it's
all sorts of people in the lab. Yeah, yeah, people
who practice science for the most part. It's not done
(06:19):
just because of some sort of love of abstraction or something.
It's it's you know, what can we what can we get?
Will ask some some reasonable questions about the world, and
then let's find a way to answer them. And I
should mention that, of course we do think of scientists
being in the lab, but they're very much in the
field too. Yeah, like the lab is important as what
we'll get to when we start talking about the actual
methods you know involved. But but yeah, science, science is
(06:43):
out there. It's not disconnected from the world. Yeah, it's
a search for information. It's this really this journey, this
quest to explain how information fits together in meaningful ways, right, right,
you know, you get the UM, the guys, the theoretical
physicists out there, and then you get all of Einstein's
adherents and they're we're out there working to solve that
(07:05):
big old physics mystery. Yeah, so let's let's hit up
point number two, and that is science is based on observation.
And this is key. It's not again, it's not just
guys in every tower going I bet frogs do such
and such because of X. No, it's like people going out,
let's observe frogs. Let's see what the frog does. Now,
let's see I the frog does it again. Let's then
let's see if the frog does it again. And then
let's see what the if the frog does it again
(07:26):
under different circumstances, etcetera. You know, it's it's about observing, right,
and as you get at UM, it's it's about replication
as well. You know, it's about talking to your colleagues. Hey,
this is what I noticed this particular species of frog
could do. And the colleagues says, oh, you know, I'm
not sure about that. Maybe I'll try that experiment, you know,
I'll replicate what you did, or maybe I won't replicate
(07:49):
what you did, maybe my results will be different, maybe
we'll need to take this in a new direction. And
that's another big thing. Um, when we were researching this podcast,
it comes across I think that people can get very
tied up in science pedantic and following these steps and
sure we are going through these different parts of science
and what defines science. But science is creative. Science is innovative. Yes,
(08:09):
it does have core concepts, but nothing set in stone, right. Yeah.
I mean that science has has often involved, you know,
making new discoveries that change centuries old um laws say,
especially pretending to physics. You know, Newton came I mean
not Einstein came along and uh, and he changed the
things that Newton had proposed that had stood the test
(08:31):
of time. It's also important to note that when we're
talking about science, we as a society inform what's going on,
what investigations are being carried out. You know, is there
an outbreak of Westnile virus, then yes, people are going
to be concerned and there will be research port into
investigating the pathology of West Nile virus and uh. And
(08:54):
that kind of leads into point number three, and that
is that data reveals the structure of something. What is
the thing that we're studying, the West nol virus or
a star or you know, you name it. And that
often means breaking down into quantitative data. That means describing
an object numerically um and uh in using some sort
(09:15):
of like a unit of measurement, so you know it's
like girl, yeah, or you know, or just miles per hour,
you know, something as simple as that. You know, we're
breaking we're getting a unit out and then we're busting
out some numbers on it and we're quantifying it. But
quantitative data isn't everything. There's also qualitative data and and
that can be a little bit trickier to interpret, a
little bit more of a time suck to gather. Yeah,
(09:38):
this is point four. But yeah, data can also reveal behavior. Um.
And you know when you're talking about qualitative data, you're
really talking about that something that's a written description about
an object or an organism. It compliments quantitative data. You know,
it tells you, it gives you really the complete picture.
You know, what is it made of and how does
it behave? Yeah, yeah, this is yeah, it really revolves
(09:59):
around behavior. So it's like, um, we we know what
the frog looks like we've cut it open, we've seen
all the insides, but what's it doing? How does it behave?
Or you know, or just something simple were not as simple,
but something like light for instance, you know, breaking down
what light is and then how light behaves in the universe. Yeah,
so science is also in intellectual pursuit. Yeah, at this
(10:20):
point number five that that Mr Harris makes and this
is just making observation. Collecting data are not the ultimate goals.
Data must be analyzed and used to understand the world
around us. A data point is only that it's just
a data point. It takes you, the scientists, to infer
and draw conclusions and uh, take your research in a
(10:40):
new direction based on what you find. Right again, and
this is important to derive generalizations based on specific observations.
Oh here's here. I like you, and I think a
lot of people have been in this boat. All right,
So my cat, biscuit, if you're listening, you know, here's
a shout out, Hey biscuit, she's not listening. Should never
listened to any podcast totally. She just doesn't even playing
(11:04):
in the house when you're gone. No, but I mean
I asked her about her and she's just like you know.
But anyway, so so what what is she doing if
she's not listening to her podcast? Well that instead of
listening to the podcast, she spends her days like climbing
up next to the window and doing like a lot
of cats meeting at birds? What is what do you
mean by It's not exactly meeting, it's more like, you know,
(11:26):
they kind of make this little noise that the birds,
which you know, and you know, and my wife and
I said around discussing and we're like, well, what does
it mean? Is she's saying I would eat you if
there was not glass here, or she's saying I want
to go to their you know what she saying, I
want to go to there. Yeah, we didn't mention the
meat in our how Cats Work article? Did they not?
I don't think they mentioned the meat. Well that's the
(11:47):
weird thing because like I have always have a heart.
That's like a whole different podcast because I can never
find like really good solid data as to want cats
do any of the things they do. Um, but anyway,
so the cats meeting at birch right, so, um, maybe
all cats meet theater? Do all cats make at birth?
That's a generalization. And then that would be the generalization
that one would would investigate. So Edwin hubbell Um, the
(12:10):
great man behind the Hubble Shift, he observed what he
thought were a nebula speeding away from what was thought
to be the universe's only galaxy. Okay, what kind of
generalization did he get from that? Well, he said, well,
maybe the universe is made of millions of galaxies and
all of them are moving away from each other as
the universe expanded, and and and that was the starting
(12:32):
point for our under a lot of our current understanding
of the universe. Right. So hubbles observation, of course, drew
much more research. And it kind of gets at the
quote that we put in here as a nice little
uh close it out on this point by George Bernard Shaw.
Science it never solves a problem without creating ten more.
YEA and I. And it seems like you you have kids,
(12:54):
So I imagine are they they age yet where they
ask question after question after questions. Okay, so it seems
like the same thing, right, It's like they ask a question,
you answered and that stirs you know, numerous other questions. Yes,
there is an unlimited line of inquiry with children. Well,
the one who can talk and they do they tend
Because that's the other thing too, is like the questions.
(13:14):
Science is about questions getting deeper to right, Like sure, yeah,
I mean definitely. You think about a child's reasoning. Okay,
so here might be an exchange. Um, you ask me
we have to go take a bath now, and the
kid goes, why don't we have to go ahead in bath? Well,
because you know, you played outside today and you got dirty.
(13:36):
And then the kid asked, why did I get dirty? Well,
you know there's a lot of different Wise, I don't
know that she's ever asked why am I dirty? But
it does. Yeah, it just gets deeper and deeper, and
pretty soon you're you know, tackling these huge questions of
you know, religion and science, and like it starts off
to take a bath, and then eventually it's like what
(13:58):
is time? Mother? And like I don't know, here's the
shampo go for speaking of time, You're going time out
unless you get in the bath now. So let's keep
moving on. Yeah, So moving on to point six, And
that's that science makes predictions and here's the thing, and
then then test those predictions using experiments. So like generalizations
(14:19):
are great, Yeah, and they enable us, but they enables
to make those predictions and then test them. And that's key.
Like like, if I was to, uh, you know, the
generalization about all cats meeting at birds, um, I would
you know, if I were gonna investigate that, I would
want to, you know, put it to the test um, Like,
get a whole bunch of cats together, put them through
(14:39):
a rigorous testing to see how they respond to birds
on the other side of glass. You know, which one's
meat at at birds on this side of glass, which
one's meat at moths, which one you know, et cetera.
And you would have to like you and then quantify
all the data, and you have to control for all
the interesting variables going on. There Are there some long
haired cats in the mix, Are there some katies and
some old cat Are some of the cats missing their
(15:01):
eyes so perhaps they don't see the bird? Are they
meeting a different birds? Are all sorts of ways you
could set up this experiment which would probably draw more
experiments and more funding. Cool, Okay, And then finally point
seven science is systematic. Yeah, if you want to check
out why cats are meeting at birds, you really got
(15:22):
to make it systematic. Otherwise no one's going to take
you credibly. It's kind of like going back to the
like scientists is ever expanding thing. I like that. I
sometimes like to think of it in terms of, say,
like imagine an army on a battlefield and they're going
to say, take this next hill, you know, or achieve
this next tactical victory. They like point to the place
(15:42):
on the map. It's like, all right, we're going to
we're going to take this area. And then they have
to sit down and figure out strategy. Right, how do
we take that area? You know? How do you We
can't just march out into it. You can have to
have a plan and uh. And that's part of the
systematic aspect of science. Like science is like a finely
tuned army, you know, And it's with ever changing tactics,
ever changing tactics. You know. Well some some core tactics
(16:05):
that remained us sitting the same, which we're going to
get to in the next in the in the next
podcast scientific methods. Okay, the tactics can change, but some
remain true form. But also I mean goals differ, of course,
the laws change. Yeah. I like your battlefield experiment. I'll
give it to you. That's one of my more favorite analogies.
It doesn't it doesn't fall aparties quickly with some of them. Yeah,
(16:25):
So yeah, that's what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna
talk about how all these parts fit together in the
scientific method for our next podcast, So be sure to
listen in as we get into, uh what the scientific
method is. And I bet you guys probably have a
good idea. And we will also be taking you through
a little experiment that we devised on our own involving
perhaps some putting pops and somebody's stealing them. We'll see
(16:50):
you tune in next time. Yeah, And if you guys
have a favorite science quote that you want to share
with us, be sure to send it to us at
science stuff at how stuff works dot com. And if
you want to go over to the site and check
out Bill Harris's article on scientific method, go ahead and
do that too. Thanks for listening for more on this
(17:13):
and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
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