Scientific Method & Scientific Societies

1. Scientific Method & Scientific Societies Spencer Aidt, Ben Pierce, and Nathan Kiel

2. Scientific Method • Scientists began to move toward a new epistemology or a new theory of how to obtain and verify knowledge. • They stressed experience, reason, and doubt, as well as a true description of physical reality. • Scientists developed a new a process that consisted of three parts following a hypothesis, known as the scientific method: 1. Observations 2. a generalization induced from the observations 3. tests of the generalization by experiments with outcomes predicted by the generalization. (generalizations remain valid only if they are not contradicted by specifically designed experiments made to test them.) • The only data used was the result of a strict observation. • Scientific reasoning uncovered the laws, principles, and patterns that emerged from observations. • Measurement became the key to data, so science became more connected to mathematics. • The essence of the scientific method is a special way of looking at and understanding nature that allows experiments and hypotheses to occur in the mind.

3. Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

4. René Descartes • French philosopher and scientist who made the first concentrated attempt to apply the new methods of science to theories of knowledge, and, in doing, so laid the foundation for modern philosophy. • Contemplated on the ability of the human mind to acquire knowledge and the actual nature of reality • Believed that scientific study should be based on valid deductions from self-evident truths, rooted in observation. • Applied the principle of doubt, or the refusal to accept any authority without strict verification, in order to find solid truth.

5. The Principle of Doubt • Descartes applied the principle of doubt, or the refusal to accept any authority without reflection, in order to find solid truth. • He believed the only certain thing he could know was doubting, which allowed him to proceed with the observation “I think, therefore I am,” due to the fact that the act of doubting proved he was thinking, and thinking, in turn demonstrated his existence. • He derived the crucial statement of whatever is clearly and distinctly thought must be true from the assertion of his own existence. • This assertion also enabled him to assert the existence of God because people realize they are imperfect, and therefore must have an idea of perfection that they are measured against. If people have a clear idea of what perfection is, then it must exist; so there must be a God.

6. The Discourse on Method • Descartes’s major work was the Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences (1637) • Descartes asserted that the mind is pure and unmistakable and one must rely on it in order to advance their understanding in the world. • Descartes developed his view into a fundamental proposition about the nature of the world in this major work. He stated that there was an essential divide between thought and extension (tangible objects) or spirit and matter. • Descartes divided science from faith, but more importantly, the reality of the world from our perception of reality.

7. First edition of the Discourse on Method

8. The Influence of Descartes • Hypotheses gained credibility from the logical tightness of the arguments used to support it, not just from external proofs. • Descartes applied the methods of science to all knowledge in such a way that all truth had to be investigated through the methods of the scientist. • Descartes’ theoretical contributions to scientific research allowed him to perceive the distinction between mass and weight and apply algebraic notations and methods to geometry, which founded analytic geometry. • Most importantly, the principle of doubt undermined traditional assumptions like the belief in the hierarchical organization of the universe.

9. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

10. Francis Bacon • The Greatest of all of science’s propagandists and inspired leading figures in natural philosophy and in the field of science methodology. • Lawyer, member of Parliament and the Queen’s Council, Lord Chancellor under James I in England. • Studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Gray’s Inn, London. • Notable Works: The Advancement of Learning, Redargutio Philosophiarum, de Principiis atque Originibus, Great Instauration, Novum Organum, and New Atlantis. • New Atlantis was published a year after Bacon’s death and is a vision of science as the savior of the human race. It predicts a time when those doing research at high levels will be the most important people in the state and will work on vast government- supported projects to gather all know facts about the physical universe.

11. First edition of New Atlantis

12. Francis Bacon: Natural Philosophy • Criticized Plato and Aristotle, as well as the scholastics and humanists of the Renaissance movement, finding a lack of a general theory of science, and opposing the inquiry of causes to satisfy the mind. • Human mind is not “tabula rosa”, but rather we must improve our mind before taking in any knowledge. • Doctrine of detection of fallacies- sophistical fallacies, fallacies of interpretation, and false appearances or idols (productions of the human imagination). • Tried to answer questions on cosmology and matter theory.

13. Scientific Method (Induction) • Sees nature as a labyrinth whose workings can not be explained. • Logic of research must go beyond ordinary logic • Sciences of the future should be examined and further ones should be discovered. • It is necessary to repudiate superstition, zealous religion, and false authorities. • Draw philosophical conclusions from the collections of facts. • “slow and faithful toil gathers information from things and brings it into understanding.”

14. Inductive Method (Bacon) • Implies ascending to axioms (premise or starting point of reasoning) • From more general axioms, Bacon strives to reach more fundamental laws of nature, which lead to practical deductions as new experiments. • Must refute: natural human reason, demonstrations (syllogisms) and theories. • Tables of discovery- contribution to the new philosophy • Interpretation of nature rather than anticipation of nature, which produces obstacles to the process of knowledge. • The function of experiments was both to test theories and to establish facts

15. Influence of Bacon’s Method • Induction, founded on collection, comparison and exclusion of factual qualities, proved to be a revolutionary achievement in natural philosophy. • Facts can not be collected from nature, but must be constituted by methodical procedures, which must be put into practice in order to ascertain empirical basis for inductive generalizations. • “Oxford Roger Bacon” project, launched in the late 1990’s, is connected to the modern day deeper assessment of his works.

16. Scientific Societies

17. Science institutionalized • Bacon and others realized that scientific work should be cooperative and that information should exchanged among all its practitioners. • The first scientific society was founded in Rome in 1603 and made the first major effort to apply this view. • Marin Mersenne, a friar in France, followed the precedent of the society founded in Rome and became the center of an international network of correspondents interested in scientific work. • He spread news by bringing scientists together for discussions and experiments, and these meetings eventually led to a more permanent and systematic organization of scientific society.

18. The Royal Society • The first steps toward a scientific society in England were taken at Oxford during the Civil War in the 1640s, when revolutionaries captured Oxford and replaced those at the university. • The newcomers formed the Invisible College, which met to exchange information and discuss each other’s work • The group included only one prominent scientist, Robert Boyle, but in 1660 he and eleven others formed an official organization, the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, with headquarters in the capital. • Charles II granted a charter to the Society in 1662, signaling a link with political authority that boosted science and indicated the growing presence of government in all areas of society.

19. The Aims and Purpose of the Royal Society • At first, the Royal Society maintained openly Baconian purposes with goals such as gathering all knowledge about nature, but this was soon found impossible. • Members offered services for the public good, like developing the science of social statistics (“political arithmetic”) for government. • The Society’s principal function was to serve as a headquarters and clearing center for research, and its secretaries maintained an enormous correspondence to encourage English and foreign scholars to send in news of their discoveries. • In 1665, The Society began the publication of Philosophical Transactions, which was the first professional scientific journal.

20. Other Scientific Societies • Louis XIV approved the founding of a French Royal Academy of Sciences in 1666, which became an official institution under his protection in 1699. • Similar organizations were established in Naples with its Society of the Investigators and Berlin by 1700. • Membership in these societies was limited and highly prized. They were also a sign of glamour that began to attach itself to new studies.

21. Citations Chambers, Mortimer, Barbara Hanawalt, Theodore Rabb, Isser Woloch, Raymond Grew, and Lisa Tiersten. Volume 1: To the Eighteenth Century. Ninth ed. Vol. 1 of The Western Experience. New York, NY: McGraw- Hill, 2007. Descartes, Rene. Descartes' Discourse on Method, and Other Writings. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, n.d. Accessed October 28, 2013. http://www.questia.com/library/3193875/ descartes-discourse-on-method-and-other-writings. Hatfield, Gary. Rene Descartes. 2008. Klein, Jurgen. Francis Bacon. 2012. Rene Descartes. December 9, 2002. University of Waterloo Library. Scholarly Societies Project. July 30, 2007.