FYI

Check out five iconic science images...and why they're wrong here.

Importance of Good Science

In chapter 1, we discussed the importance of adhering to the scientific method when conducting scientific research. This is particularly important if you are in a position where millions of people will hear your results. Enter Dr. Oz. Recently, Dr. Oz reported on his show that apple juice is tainted with arsenic. This would be bad. If it were true. News agencies, bloggers, and the FDA jumped all over Dr. Oz for his reporting of misleading results and failure to retract his statements. There's a great commentary here at Genomics, Evolution, and Pseudoscience that gives a concise report of what Dr. Oz did in his "experiment" and what he should have done. Great reading!

What science is and isn't

In chapter 1, we discussed the scope and limits of science. Christian apologist C.S. Lewis had something to say on the matter as well. This is from his book Mere Christianity:

Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, 'I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2.20 a.m. on January 15th and saw so-and-so' or, 'I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such-and-such a temperature and it did so-and-so.' Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what its job is. And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science - and a very useful and necessary job it is too. But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes - something of a different kind - this is not a scientific question. If there is 'Something Behind', then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, 'Why is there a universe?' 'Why does it go on as it does?' 'Has it any meaning?' would remain just as they were?

The scientific method

Since you have been studying science, probably since grammar school, you've probably hopefully learned about the scientific method. You, and most everyone that has come before you, has learned the scientific method as a series of precise steps that you must take in order for you to "do science." In reality, not a single scientist in the world uses the scientific method as you have learned it. It does however underlie every single bit of research and experimentation that they do.

Over at Neuroskeptic there is a great (and short) piece about what the scientific method really is and how you use it every time you try to figure something out. Yeah, it's summer, but it's definitely worth taking five minutes to read. You can read it here.

Up and blogging

Cold Spring Harbor Labs has a new blog up and running. Check out LabDish here.