1 Thinking Like a Scientist
Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
- Identify the shared characteristics of the natural sciences
- Compare inductive reasoning with deductive reasoning
- Illustrate the steps in the scientific method
- Explain how to design a controlled experiment
- Describe the goals of descriptive science and hypothesis-based science
- Apply the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning process to a scientific investigation
The Nature of Science
Environmental science (also known as environmental biology) is a field of study that focuses on the earth and its many complex systems. It is an interdisciplinary field that brings together elements of biology, geology, chemistry, and other natural sciences. It may even include elements of social sciences such as economics and political science. The discoveries of environmental science are made by a community of researchers who work individually and together using agreed-on methods. In this sense, environmental science, like all sciences, is a social enterprise like politics or the arts. The methods of science include careful observation, record keeping, logical and mathematical reasoning, experimentation, and submitting conclusions to the scrutiny of others. Science also requires considerable imagination and creativity; a well-designed experiment is commonly described as elegant, or beautiful. Like politics, science has considerable practical implications, and some science is dedicated to practical applications, such as improvements to farming practices (Figure 1). Other science proceeds largely motivated by curiosity. Whatever its goal, there is no doubt that science has transformed human existence and will continue to do so.
What exactly is science? What does the study of environmental science share with other scientific disciplines? Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”) can be defined as knowledge about the natural world. But science is not just a collection of facts and theories, it is also a process used to gain that knowledge.
Science is a very specific way of learning, or knowing, about the world. The history of the past 500 years demonstrates that science is a very powerful way of knowing about the world; it is largely responsible for the technological revolutions that have taken place during this time. There are however, areas of knowledge and human experience that the methods of science cannot be applied to. These include such things as answering purely moral questions, aesthetic questions, or what can be generally categorized as spiritual questions. Science cannot investigate these areas because they are outside the realm of material phenomena, the phenomena of matter and energy, and cannot be observed and measured.
The scientific method is a method of research with defined steps that include experiments and careful observation. The steps of the scientific method will be examined in detail later, but one of the most important aspects of this me