Scientific Processes: Origin of Knowledge

This 102-page guide and workbook covers basic requirements for achieving scientific literacy. Scientific processes are presented in 15 chapters, each of which includes self-test exercises designed to pique curiosity, reveal the depths of insights and knowledge about scientific processes, enhance receptiveness to the information presented in the chapters, and assure success in helping the user learn and understand what science is and how it works!

The author's definition of science as the "asking and answering of verifiable questions about nature" provides a pragmatic, simple and unique model for teaching and learning science at any level. Science is explained within contexts of "truths" (religious, legal, and scientific), and these comparisons provide a focus on both what science is and, and what it is not. Considerable coverage is given to attributes and qualities of (1) pseudoscience, and (2) the relative roles of induction and deduction in the development of myths, on the one hand, and powerful scientific ideas on the other.

The roles of accident, chance, and serendipity in scientific discoveries is treated with clarity. Also explained are the common but innappropriate and misleading use of such concepts that science is about answering "why" questions, and "proving" (rather than disproving) ideas. Captivating quotes are scattered through the guidebook. EXAMPLE:"Knowledge no more comes from encyclopedias and libraries than milk comes from grocery-stores. Milk comes from cows, and knowledge comes from scientific processes."

A variety of optical illusions are included to demonstrate that information and knowledge are derived from context and relative position, and to emphasize how the human mind can be fooled into believing something that is not true or does not exist. They are entertaining as well as instructional. Details