What is Science?

This material for UGA GEOL 1122 consists of five pages:

1. What Science Is
    What is science?
    Why do science? I - the individual perspective
    Why do science? II - the societal perspective
    How research becomes scientific knowledge
    Science and change (and Miss Marple)
    Science and knowledge

                          The material above this line is required reading before
                         class for Railsback's UGA GEOL 1122 students.
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                        Parts 2, 3, and 4 below this line are also GEOL 1122
                        required reading, but they need not be read before class.

2. What Science Isn't
    What science isn't I: A historical perspective on scholasticism and science
    What science isn't II: Science isn't Art
    What science isn't III: Science is not technology
    What science isn't IV: Science isn't Truth, and it's not certainty
    What science isn't V: Science isn't Religion, or a religion

3. Scientific Thought: Facts, Hypotheses, Theories, and all that stuff

4. Definitions of Science
    Definitions by goal and process
    Definitions by contrast
    Not quite definitions, but critical statements

   1122 students are expected to read at least the four pages above. The fifth, below, may be too relevant and is therefore optional.

5. A Tabular History of Scientific Ideas Challenging Fundamental Notions of the World

   The sixth cuts even closer to home and therefore cannot be required.

6. Science and its societal implications

 



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