Video: Science as a way of knowing / Skepticism as a way of deferring knowing

Video: Science & Skepticism

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Eugenie Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, discusses science as both a method and a body of knowledge obtained via that method, and as such as a way of knowing. She describes skepticism as a process of deferring judgement until adequate evidence allows reasonable certainty, and thus as a way of deferring knowing.

I found this useful, but also was annoyed by some of the simplifications. Especially:

• A lot of science is simply observation and the recording and sharing of observations. Think of astronomy or systematic botany.
• A lot of science is taxonomy -- grouping observations into classes based on similarity. While this is obvious in systematic biology, think of Newton. He had the great insight that the falling apple and the orbits of the planets were similar processes, to be explained by a common theory.

Dr. Scott stressed testing of hypotheses, which of course is also a very, very important aspect of science.

I might have stressed more the social construction of scientific knowledge than she did, recognizing that authoritative scientific knowledge is based on the sound functioning of the institutions created in science to warrant scientific statements.