So this week we are talking about science
and the scientific method.
And you may be rolling your eyes at this moment
because you’ve probably learned something
about the scientific method – I know my
5th grader is learning something about the
scientific method right now.
So, this is something you have probably heard
about…but it is fundamental to our understanding
of biology and where we get all the information
we are going to talk about for the rest of
the semester.
It’s important that we all get on the same
page about science and the scientific method.
So let’s start with the idea that there’s
two types of information out there – objective
information and subjective information.
Objective is information or data that is measurable.
Subjective is data or information that is
influenced by opinion, values, morals, faith,
aesthetics.
I think everyone knows what most of those
things mean.
Aesthetics mean what something looks like
– so you can look at a sunset and think
“oh that’s beautiful” or you can look
at a painting and think “that’s not art”
or some else thinks it is amazing.
So that is subjective.
Science is the collection and analysis of
objective data.
Science can only tackle things that you can
collect objective data for.
So, I’m a bat biologist and if I want to
study something about bats, I need to be able
to record how many there are and when are
they active and what kind of food are they
eating.
Think about everything there is something
I could easily write down on a spreadsheet.
Science can’t tackle subjective information
and I think the word subjective has some negative
connotations.
I want to sort of correct that idea because
subjective information is very important – our
morals, our values, our faith are very very
important to people.
But, they just aren’t something we can tackle
in science.
And so “does God exist?” – that is a
really important question for a lot of people
and extremely valuable but it is not something
we can collect data on so it is just not the
realm of science.
Through this semester we will talk a little
bit about some of the limitation of science
and this is a key one – can we collect objective
data? – then it is in the realm of science.
If we can’t, then it is equally important
but outside the realm of science.
