John Denker discussed the ToK in his recent post. I do discuss this in my
experimental physics course because in scientific research the goal is to
advance human knowledge. How do we know something is knowledge or not? Yes,
this is a question for epistomologists. But scientists do use the answer that
the epistomologists give - that rationality is the best test of truth we have.
Rationality is using your existing knowledge and available resources to
evaluate a question and to make your best judgment. Is it perfect? No. Does
everyone have the same knowledge and resources? No.
But scientific training is an attempt to create a common basis of knowledge in
a given sub-field of science. The scientific community has created journals
and conferences as a means to keep others informed of new knowledge and to
debate whether information is new knowledge.
On another point, experimental science is a creative human endeavor. On the
first day of class, the flow chart commonly taught as the scientific method is
eradicated, and we discuss the shared values of science and the creative
process that causes two scientists with common goals to follow different paths
toward those goals. We discuss the process of making choices based on one's
background and available resources. What happens when your path leads to a
dead end? What if your path leads to somewhere other than the intended goal?
This way of learning about how science works is far more interesting and
relevant that the traditional flow chart representation of science, which
misrepresents actual science in several ways.
The flow chart implies that one person does all of the steps and does so in a
relatively short time. It also often begins with a guess to explain an
observation, which is labeled as a hypothesis. Yet, real scientists don't do
this. Rather, we are aware of several possible explanations without
necessarily choosing a favorite until more information is gathered. The flow
chart often results in a theory, as if the experimenter also creates the
theory. This implies many things, too much to elaborate on here.
I do like the concept of the maze, but as others have pointed out, it is
necessarily a limited analogy, but superior to the flow chart.
Thanks for the interesting discussion.
David Marx
Physics Department
Illinois State University