Science is a battery of special methods and procedures that has proven to be extraordinarily successful in producing knowledge and understanding of the natural world. Scientific reasoning is the ability to gain this knowledge on the basis of systematic observation, evidence, and hypotheses. This course introduces the student to some of the basic components of scientific methodology, procedures, and reasoning. Students will explore a range of topics: truth, facts, objectivity of observation, the nature of science and its differences from non-science and pseudo-science, the structure of scientific theories, the nature of scientific explanation, principles of scientific inference, limitations of science, hypothesis confirmation and rejection, Mill’s methods of experimental inquiry, and probability.
Spring.