5.6 Answers to self-teaching questions (1-2)

QUESTION 1:

The questions will be listed in bold, followed by the answers in normal text.

Answers:

a. What does it mean to "know" an object?

To "know" and object means being able to describe all its visible and invisible characteristics in relation with the other objects in its environment.

b. What is the Latin origin of the word "reason"?

The word "reason" comes from the Latin word "ratio," which means calculus. To behave in a rational way means to act while calculating the effects of the actions.

c. Name a few of the great religions of the world.

Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

d. Does day-to-day knowledge question itself and does it think it is immutable?

Within common knowledge, accumulated statements cannot change and remain the same forever.

e. Do scientists use day-to-day knowledge?

Scientists begin with common knowledge in their daily lives. Eventually, they break from its spell through their work.

f. How do we acquire common knowledge?

Common knowledge is built and transmitted by our families, relatives, close friends, neighbours, partners, tribe and community.

g. What is an "epistemological break"?

Bachelard coined "epistemological break" from the word epistemology, which is the study of knowledge. This course is a course in epistemology.

h. Where does in-depth or systematic knowledge begin?

Systematic knowledge begins as soon as one decides to stop being satisfied with the sole immediate information of our senses and stops trusting them. Then we have to dig a bit deeper. Then we become addicted to digging a bit deeper and start looking at things in a different way.

i. What distinguishes systematic knowledge?

Systematic knowledge seeks to look at things in a different light then the one that tradition provides. It launches us on a journey to create, imagine and discover the unknown. It makes us reject monotony and stop relying on tradition. It questions everything.

j. Can anybody truly understand a piece of art?

True art work can only be understood by someone who knows about art style, types, shapes, symbolism, production sites and history.

k. What kind of deeper knowledge provides science?

Deeper scientific knowledge relates to the truth that conforms to nature.

l. What are the characteristics of experimental science?

Experimental science is based on facts. It is fact-checking, objective, impersonal, universal and rational.

m. List a few approaches to knowledge.

The search for truth has been sometimes answered by religion, argument of authority, mysticism or common sense (common knowledge).

n. What are the key steps of the experimental method?

Modern science follows these steps: observation, experimentation, explanation, generalisation and prediction.

o. Is science a kind of religion?

Though it may look all powerful and seems to know no boundaries, science is no religion. Big and costly infrastructure may make science more present in some groups or populations but scientists themselves are from no particular race, sex, age, religion, skin colour or income bracket.

p. What criteria must a journalistic fact meet?

A journalistic fact must be true, real, connected to current events, new, significant and interesting.

q. What is science journalism?

Science journalism has been seen as a means of disseminating science and its concepts by translating what scientists say into a language that the lay public can understand. It has also been seen as a means of linking the world of science to the world of the citizen, raise scientific literacy of the public and create a positive attitude towards science.

r. What is the role of the science journalist?

The modern science journalist is a science critic. Her role is to explain how scientific truth is produced in a way that would make it possible for citizens to find out whom to believe or not, when to believe scientist and when not to believe them. The competent science journalist will communicate the true state of science, where it is moving forward, sideways or backward or stuck.

s. How do you evaluate the credibility of a scientist?

Ask for copies of his or her articles and check if they have been published in peer-reviewed journals.

t. How do you evaluate the importance and influence of a scientist?

Find out from a citation index how many times his or her articles have been cited, and the impact factor of the journals in which the articles have been published.

u. What four possibilities could cause you to have reservations about the quality of articles peer-reviewed journals?

1) The possibility of mistakes, since they deal with only temporary truth. 2) The possibility of fraud, for example, with doctored photos. 3) The possibility of bias and dishonesty. 4) Political pressure stopping a journal from using only scientific criteria to decide in favor or against a specific paper.

v. What are the pros and cons for a scientist in participating in a scientific committee or commission?

Cons: workload, lots to read and synthesize, meager recognition, need to reach consensus with inevitable tensions and conflicts, travel and often no financial reward; Pros: opportunity to find out about the most recent and most credible research, travel, meetings with the best experts in the field, and possibility to validate one's own research.

QUESTION 2:

A wide variety of answers are possible.


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