I’ll soon be releasing a new video course that will be available on my video tutorial site, Critical Thinker Academy, and on Udemy.
The course is titled “The Vocabulary of Science: First Steps to Science Literacy”.
It introduces some fundamental concepts about the nature of science and scientific reasoning by examining the various ways that scientists and non-scientists use terms like “theory“, “fact“, “law“, “hypothesis“, and “model“.
Below is a sequence of three videos from the course that explore the concept of a scientific “fact”.
This course has 3-4 hours of video content, and will not be available anywhere else.
Paying subscribers to the Critical Thinker Academy, and paying subscribers on Patreon, will have access to the complete course when it is launched.
You can click this link to learn more about becoming a supporter on Patreon.
Question: What is a Fact?
(1) “You Can’t Deny the Facts”: An Epistemically Loaded Definition of “Fact”
(2) “I Had the Facts Wrong”: An Epistemically-Neutral Definition of “Fact”
(3) Can There Be Theoretical Facts?
Table of Contents for the Course:
1.1 Is Evolution a Theory, a Fact, or Both?
1.2 Why Am I Qualified to Teach This Course?
1.3 Overview of the Course
2. An Important Distinction For the Whole Course
2.1 An Important Distinction: Epistemically Loaded vs Neutral Language
3.1 “It’s Just a Theory”: “Theory” as Down-Player
3.2 “Theories are the Pinnacles of Science”: “Theory” as Up-Player
3.3. Why We Need a Neutral Definition of “Theory”
3.4 A Neutral Definition of “Theory”: A Classical (But Incomplete) Story
3.5 A Neutral Definition of “Theory”: A More Sophisticated Story
4.1 “You Can’t Deny the Facts”: A Loaded Definition of “Fact”
4.2 “I Had the Facts Wrong”: A Neutral Definition of “Fact”
4.3 Can There Be Theoretical Facts?
5.1 Loaded Definitions of “Law”
5.2 Examples of Laws in Biology and Psychology
5.3 Examples of Laws in Physics and Astronomy
5.4 Unpacking the Neutral Concept of “Law”
5.5. But Are There Any Laws?
5.6 A Quick Word: Are Laws Explanatory?
6.1 “That’s Just a Hypothesis”: A Loaded Definition of “Hypothesis”
6.2 A Neutral Definition of “Hypothesis”
7.1 Introduction: What is a Model?
7.3 Models as Tools For Reasoning About the World
7.4 How Equations Can Be Models
7.5 Is There a Difference Between a Model and a Theory?
8. Theories, Models, Truth and Reality
8.1 Introduction: Theories, Models, Truth and Reality
8.2 The Challenge of Interpreting Theories
8.3 Prediction and Truth: Lessons from Ptolemy
8.4 Prediction and Truth: Lessons from the Kinetic Theory of Gases
9. Test Yourself: Video Analysis Assignment
9.1 Assignment: Analyse and Critique a 7 Minute Video (“Fact vs Theory vs Hypothesis vs Law … Explained!”)
9.2 Part 1: The Motivation For the Video
9.3 Part 2: “Scales of Truthiness”
9.4 Part 3: The Fundamental Error
9.5 Part 4: Defining Facts in Terms of Observations
9.6 Part 5: Defining Hypotheses as Starting Points For Inquiry
9.7 Part 6: Defining Theories as Well-Supported
9.8 Part 7: More Problems with Defining Facts in Terms of Observations
9.9 Part 8: Can Laws Explain, Or Do They Just Describe? Kepler, Newton and Einstein
9.10 Analyzing the Last Slide
9.11 Lessons Learned From This Exercise
As I said at the top, ONLY paying subscribers to the Critical Thinker Academy, and paying subscribers on Patreon, will have access to the complete course when it is launched.
You can click this link to learn more about becoming a supporter on Patreon.
I’m excited to share this course!
Mike
28 Aug 2018Where do “Concepts” and “Ideas (ispecific or n general)” fit into the vocabulary of science, if at all, and how are they defined and utilized, if at all? Do metaphors play any role? Also, how are each defined in critical thinking?
Kevin deLaplante
28 Aug 2018I chose the terms I did because there’s already a whole genre of vocabulary policing articles and videos, coming out of the science education community, that focus on these concepts. I explain some of this in my intro videos. So partly what I’m doing is engaging with this body of critical writing about the vocabulary of science. I’ve never read an article from a science educator that wanted to comment on the public understanding of terms like “concept” and “idea” and “metaphor” in science, but I’ve read dozens that talk about theories, hypotheses, laws, etc.
None of these terms you mentioned are well-defined within “critical thinking”. Terms like these pick up their meaning by how they’re used within particular communities. Knowing how a cognitive psychologist uses the term “concept” may not tell you much about how a philosopher of mind or language uses the term, or how a physicist uses the term. You have to do some conceptual archeology to extract and clarify those uses.
There is a literature in the philosophy of science specifically about the role of metaphor in science. But like I said, this course is motivated mostly by a genre of writing within the science education community that I find problematic. That gives it some focus, but for that reason it’s not going be comprehensive.