Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 Summary
Curiosity, Creativity, and Commitment

Science

Science is one of several ways of learning about the world. It employs both systematic observation and rational processes to create new knowledge.

Science is a Way of Thinking

Science involves a process of inquiry, and its essence is the scientist's way of thinking--the logic used in systematically asking and answering questions. Although scientists often use sophisticated laboratory hardware (i.e., the technology of science), what truly characterizes science is its way of thinking, its discipline, and its demands for evidence.

Asking Questions

The working life of a scientist revolves around questioning nature, tolerating uncertainties, and finding intellectual excitement in seeking answers to questions about nature. Scientists are engaged in creative behaviors; they enjoy the personal satisfaction of indulging their own curiosity and exercising their own creativity. Two major characteristics of scientists are their skepticism and their pervasive curiosity. That curiosity is not idle, but active; seemingly accidental scientific discoveries are not a matter of luck, but occur because the scientist's curiosity is embedded in a prepared mind and long hours of research.

Science and Art

Characteristics of scientists--their curiosity, creativity, skepticism, tolerance for ambiguity, and commitment to hard work--are also found in artists, writers, poets, sculptors, painters, composers, and philosophers. Science and art are not the same, but they share characteristics. They employ variations of the same themes: human curiosity, a commitment to ideas, processes for inquiry, and a goal to produce representations of their ideas.

Acquiring Knowledge

The essence of science is its disciplined thinking, which is aimed at understanding about nature. Science makes heavy demands on the adequacy of its information and of the processes applied to that information. However, people have historically used many ways, other than science, in their attempts to acquire and justify knowledge:

Tenacity

Tenacity is a willingness to accept an idea as valid knowledge because that idea has been accepted for a very long time or has been so often repeated that it acquires an aura of "truth."

Intuition

Intuition presumably operates directly, without any intellectual effort or even involvement of sensory processes; knowledge supposedly comes to a person in a flash of insight or revelation.

Authority

Authority is the acceptance of ideas as valid knowledge because some respected authority holds those ideas.

The above methods of knowing make few demands on the person's information and processes. But some decisions demand that information and the processes used to gather and evaluate it be more adequate. In this regard, both rationalism and empiricism provide a firmer basis for accepting information as valid knowledge.

Rationalism

In rationalism, knowledge is developed through reason. In the rationalistic approach, information is carefully stated and logical rules are followed to arrive at conclusions. Although a more sound method than tenacity, intuition, and authority, rationalism has a limitation: its premises must be true as determined by some other evidence in order to arrive at correct conclusions. However, pure rationalism has no provision for assessing the accuracy or validity of the premises.

The logic of rationalism is used in modern science to aid in developing hypotheses, which can then be tested against external criteria. For that testing another way of acquiring knowledge--empiricism--is necessary.

Empiricism

Empiricism is a way of gaining knowledge through direct observation of events (i.e., knowing by experiencing through the senses). But empiricism alone has its limitations; observations may be interpreted in different ways.

Science

Science combines rational logic and empirical observations in a continuous and systematic interplay.

Emergence of Science

In its current experimental and mathematical form, modern science emerged in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but it had a long period of development prior to that emergence. The history of science suggests that empiricism was the first to develop, followed by the emergence of rationalism. In any case, an implicit belief that the universe operates in an orderly and lawful manner (the orderliness belief) provided an early basis for modern science.

Early Civilization

Early in history, humans had amassed an impressive array of skills useful in accomplishing necessary tasks. These skills were empirical. Gradually, over thousands of years, humans developed abstract conceptualizations based on the existing empirical knowledge.

Greek Science

By 600 B.C. the basic components necessary for the emergence of science had been developed. Thales is credited with creating an empirical-rational view of the universe. Later Greek thinkers continued Thales' empirical tradition. Socrates and Plato, however, emphasized the exclusive use of rationalism. The Greeks had developed both empiricism and rationalism, but it was rationalism--the pursuit of pure reason--with which they culminated their philosophy. Greek philosophy became increasingly abstract, rational, and mystical, relegating empirical knowledge to low importance.

Medieval Science

Christianity dominated medieval science. Like the Greeks, medieval scholars believed that divine intelligence controlled an orderly and knowable universe. Although empirical science continued under the Christians, it was clearly secondary to theology. By the thirteenth century, however, several Christian scholars became more interested and active in empirical studies. In time, empirical science clashed with theology.

The Scientific Revolution

Empirical-rational science became increasingly important after the thirteenth century; by the beginning of the nineteenth century, science had not only been reestablished and strengthened but had achieved an independent status. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the scientific revolution was in full swing. Scientific centers for research and learning were established in universities, social resources were made available to support science, and the work of scientists became sought after by industries, universities, and governments.

Science has seen its most rapid development in the past century. Building on its earlier base, science has advanced enormously. Our current scientific enterprise is dependent on a vast, heavily endowed social structure of universities, research centers, and industrial and private agencies. University departments have been created for the education and training of scientists. Large networks of scientific societies have been set up with annual meetings in which scientists communicate their findings and lobby for greater public resources. Scientists also communicate with the general public through newspapers, magazines, books, radio, and television. Science has become a major part of modern culture.

Today there are many different scientific disciplines. But, regardless of the discipline in which they work, scientists share a strong curiosity about nature and a commitment to the process of science--combining empiricism and rationalism to understand nature.

Psychology

Psychology has been an independent science for less than 150 years, but had been part of philosophy for more than 2000 years.

The History of Psychology

Nineteenth century physiology, philosophy, and Darwinian evolutionary theory formed the context for the emergence of psychology. Wilhelm Wundt started the first psychological laboratory in 1879 in Germany. Structuralism and functionalism were early schools of psychology, soon followed by Gestalt psychology, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology, and cognitive psychology. Today, most psychologists are not strong adherents of particular schools but, rather, have developed integrated areas, such as learning, motivation, personality, and cognitive processes.

Women and Minorities in Psychology

As in most professional disciplines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women and ethnic minorities were virtually excluded from psychology. However, a number of pioneering women managed, against great odds, to become psychologists and to make significant contributions to the science and practice of psychology. Although most Ph.D.-level psychologists are men, most of the undergraduate and graduate students in the field today are women, indicating the male-female ratio will continue to change toward greater inclusion of women. Persons of color and of Jewish origin were also discriminated against in those early days of the twentieth century, but such discrimination is now rare.

Modern Psychology

Psychology is now a large discipline; more than 152,000 psychologists belong to the American Psychological Association (APA) and nerarly 7,000 belong to the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA). Psychology is often considered to be a social science, like anthropology, economics, and sociology. However, psychology is also grounded in natural sciences, such as biology. There are many subdisciplines within psychology, each with its own particular interests, content, and methods. But each subdiscipline uses the scientific model to study the behavior of living organisms.

The Science of Psychology

Psychology is a serious scientific discipline but, unfortunately, pseudoscience is often presented in the media as psychology. The pseudoscientific theories in pop psychology often sound fine, but they have never been subjected to the rigorous tests expected of a scientific theory. Many of these pop psychology theories are flat out wrong; others may be either right or wrong, but since no one has done the research, we do not know their validity. Such pseudoscience as pop psychology often sounds good, but it has not provided useful solutions to real-world problems in the ways that the scientific discipline of psychology has.

Ethical Principles

Over the past six decades, ethical concerns have led to the development of guidelines for scientific research. Every student must learn these ethical principles and guidelines and must realize that the ethics of science and scientific research are immensely important in our modern world.

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