The Vocabulary of Science: First Steps to Science Literacy

Explore how the term theory functions as an epistemic loaded down player, contrasting weak versus strong evidential status, with examples from evolution, black holes, and popular usage.

This lecture defends a neutral concept of theory to avoid contradictions when discussing Ptolemy's geocentric cosmos and other historical theories.

Define a theory as a claim offered to explain observable phenomena in the natural world, linking explanation and understanding through empirical evidence.

Reframes the theory–observation distinction by showing data gathering and interpretation are theory driven. Shows that observation is theory dependent at stages, with MRI and bubble chamber data illustrating indirect observation.

Analyze epistemic loaded uses of fact in science and everyday speech, and how claims are judged by evidence, consensus, and provisional assent across communities and history.

Explore why we need an epistemic neutral definition of fact, distinguishing true claims from beliefs about truth, and learn to use 'fact' as a neutral placeholder in science.

This lecture examines how science treats facts beyond simple verifiable observations, showing that theoretical claims—atoms and molecules, evolution, Big Bang, and Down syndrome associated with chromosome 21—are accepted as facts.

Explore epistemic loaded uses of 'law' in science, showing how laws signify repeatable patterns backed by strong evidence, universal and concise, while noting neutral senses and distinctions from hypotheses.

Explore examples of laws in biology and psychology, from Bergman’s rule to Weber’s law, and assess how domain-specific regularities become scientific laws.

Explore how Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation describe and predict the motions of bodies, from cannonballs to planets, and how Kepler's laws reveal planetary orbits and harmonies.

Explore how laws express generalizations about whole classes, enable counterfactual reasoning, and define physical necessity, possibility, and impossibility within epistemic neutral terms.

Explore how scientists and philosophers analyze the concept of a law, compare universal versus domain-specific generalizations, and assess when observable patterns with predictive value become laws, rules, or unclear theories.

Explore the debate over whether laws are descriptive rather than explanatory, and how this idea appears in the vocabulary of science and science literacy.

The lecture defines a hypothesis as a tentative, testable guess that requires experiment and observation, and notes 'it's only a hypothesis' as a common downplaying use.

Frame a hypothesis as a candidate for empirical testing, and show how a test combines the hypothesis with background assumptions to yield observable predictions.

Explore what a model means in science, including neutral uses, and how reasoning by analogy and abstraction frames the distinction between a model and the thing modeled.

Explore how models serve as tools for reasoning by analogy and abstraction, guided by the abstraction hypothesis that similarities justify inferences despite differences.

Learn how equations act as models to reason about the world, using analogy and abstraction to determine when their predictions apply within a domain.

Explore how theories and models differ and relate, using context and concrete examples from gravity, evolution, and machine learning to reveal their hierarchy.

Explore the vocabulary of science as a path to science literacy by linking empirical success to what theories reveal about reality, including truth, models, and predictions.

Explore how interpreting scientific theories reveals what the world must be like if a theory is true, and why multiple interpretations arise as a philosophical, not strictly scientific, project.

Explore how predictive power can support belief in a theory while revealing its limits, using Ptolemy's epicycles to show strong predictions coexist with a false cosmos model.

Explore the kinetic theory of gases and its core assumptions about particle motion and collisions, and how abstraction justifies predictions within a domain of application.

Apply critical thinking to science vocabulary by analyzing the meanings of fact, theory, hypothesis, law, and model. Critique a popular 7 minute video using guided questions.

Clarify the motivation behind exploring fact, theory, hypothesis, and law, and show how these terms relate to evolution and climate change as well-supported theories.

Explore scales of truthiness and evidential support, contrasting degrees of truth with binary true/false. Note that ordinary scientific language favors binary truth and could use evidence as a clarifying scale.

Explore the definition of theories as well-substantiated explanations tested by the scientific method and observation, while noting loaded and neutral uses and the issue of falsified theories.

Clarify the fact versus theory distinction in evolution by distinguishing observable changes from unobservable lineages, noting common ancestry is treated as a fact by biologists while remaining a theoretical inference.

The discussion contrasts gravity as a law and as a theory, critiques an observation-based law definition, and discusses limits of Newton's law and the role of forces.

Explore how laws describe phenomena without explaining why, while theories like Newton and Einstein explain gravity; Kepler's laws emerge from a broader theory, challenging the covering law view.

Show how science education prioritizes solving applied problems over critical thinking, leaving vocabulary and philosophy of science as gaps that this course helps fill.

Explain science literacy as critical thinking about science and its role in modern life, and how politicians should engage with evidence and consensus.

Explore how the logic and methods of science differ, and how bias-minimizing protocols, replication, and peer review support reliable scientific knowledge.

Explore the landscape of science and how disciplines differ and relate, from physics to psychology, and discuss debates on reductionism and emergence for science literacy.

Explore ethics of science by examining how science benefits people and who decides research priorities, highlighting neglected diseases, funding biases, and the tension between national interests and global public good.