January 19, 2019 Saturday
Bedtime Story
National Academy of Sciences
It is worth going carefully through each
line of the definition of scientific theory as proposed by the National Academy
of Sciences (NAS).
Now you may ask why you should bother
listening to what NAS has to say about scientific theory.
Well, perhaps you may want to after you get
to know a little bit more about NAS.
Many of you may not be evenaware of the
existence of National Academy of Sciences that is based in Washington DC.
NAS was founded way back in 1863 by an Act
passed by the Congress and which was approved/signed by President Abraham
Lincoln.
It came as quiet a surprise to me that this
Act was passed when the new nation was passing through its worst times amidst a
ruinous war that threatened the very integrity and future survival of the
nation.
The Act that gave legal sanctity to NAS had
the following expectations from it:
“The Academy shall, whenever called upon by
any department of the Government, investigate, examine, experiment, and report
upon the subject of science or art, the actual expense of such investigations,
examinations, experiments, and reports to be paid from appropriations which may
be made for the purpose, but the Academy shall receive no compensation whatever
for any services to the Government of the United States.”
190 members of the NAS have been the recipients
of Nobel Prize.
So I think it justifies paying attention to
what NAS has to say about scientific theory.
“The formal scientific definition of a
theory is quite different from the everyday meaning of the word.
It refers to a comprehensive explanation of
some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence.
Many scientific theories are so well
established that no new evidence is likely to alter them substantially.
For example, no new evidence will
demonstrate that the Earth does not orbit around the sun (heliocentric theory),
or that living things are not made up of cells (cell theory), that matter is
not composed of atoms, or that the surface of the Earth is not divided into
solid plates that have moved over geological timescales (the theory of plate
tectonics…)
One of the most useful properties of
scientific theories is that they can be used to make predictions about natural
events or phenomena that have not yet been observed.”
Karl Popper proposed seven characteristics
or perhaps points that one has to look into when one is considering to evaluate
a theory to be scientific or not:
(1) It is easy to obtain confirmations, or
verifications, for nearly every theory – if we look for confirmations (this is
an incredibly astute and penetrating observation of his that has been often
left out or ignored by others but the reason why so many apes hold on to so
many wild insane faiths).
We shall continue with the other six characteristics
that Karl Popper proposed in the nights to come
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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