This document discusses the nature of scientific inquiry through examples of famous scientists who made mistakes or had their theories later disproven, showing how science is self-correcting. It provides examples of Lord Kelvin underestimating the age of the Earth until radioactivity was discovered. Enrico Fermi initially claiming to create transuranium elements through bombardment, but actually discovering nuclear fission. And Linus Pauling proposing an incorrect 3-strand DNA model that was later corrected by Watson and Crick's double helix model.

1. Nature of Scientific Inquiry
HAFIZ
MUZZAMMEL
BZU, Lahore
Campus

2. What is Science?
Science is a methodical approach to studying
the natural world. Science asks basic
questions, such as
 how does the world work?
 How did the world come to be?
 What was the world like in the past?
 What is it like now, and what will it be like in
future?
These questions are answered using
observation, testing, and interpretation
through logic.

3. Science
 Science is a human endeavor and is subject
to ;
 Personal prejudices,
 Misapprehensions,
 Bias
 Repeated reproduction and verification of
observations and experimental results can
overcome these weaknesses
 Scientific inquiry is one of the strengths of
the scientific process

4. Scientific Inquiry
 Scientific inquiry refers to the characteristics
of the processes through which scientific
knowledge is developed, including the
conventions of development, acceptance, and
utility of scientific knowledge.
 Different kinds of questions suggest different
kinds of scientific investigations; current
scientific knowledge and understanding guide
scientific investigations.

5. Scientific Inquiry
“Scientific Inquiry refers to the diverse ways in
which scientists study the natural world and
propose explanations based on the evidence
derived from their work. Inquiry also refers to
the activities of students in which they develop
knowledge and understanding of scientific
ideas, as well as an understanding of how
scientists study the natural world.”
—National Research
Council

6.  The world is REAL; it exists apart from our
sensory perception of it.
 The Universe Is Understandable.
 Humans can accurately perceive and attempt
to understand the physical universe.
 The Universe Is a Vast Single System In
Which the Basic Rules Are Everywhere the
Same.
 Scientific Ideas Are Subject To Change.
Scientific knowledge’s Assumptions

7.  Natural processes are sufficient to explain or
account for natural phenomena or events. In
other words, scientists must explain the
natural in terms of the natural (and not the
supernatural, which, lacking any independent
evidence, is not falsifiable and therefore not
science), although humans may not currently
recognize what those processes are.
 By the nature of human mental processing,
rooted in previous experiences, our
perceptions may be inaccurate or biased.
Scientific knowledge’s Assumptions

8. Scientific explanations are limited
Scientific knowledge is necessarily
dependent knowledge rather than
absolute, and therefore must be
evaluated and assessed, and is subject to
modification in light of new evidence. It is
impossible to know if we have thought of
every possible alternative explanation or
every variable, and technology may be
limited.

9. Scientific explanations are
probabilistic
The statistical view of nature is evident
absolutely or unambiguously when stating
scientific predictions of phenomena or
explaining the likelihood of events in
actual situations.

10. SCIENCE IS NOT AUTHORITARIAN
 In science, it is appropriate
to turn to knowledgeable
sources of information and
opinion, usually specialists
in relevant disciplines
 But respected authorities
have been wrong many
times in the history of
science
Aristotle

11. SCIENCE IS SELF CORRECTING
AND PROGRESSIVE
 In the short run, new ideas that do not agree well with
mainstream ideas may encounter vigorous criticism, and
scientists investigating such ideas may have difficulty
obtaining support for their research
 Challenges to new ideas are the legitimate business of
science in building valid knowledge

12. SCIENCE IS SELF CORRECTING
AND PROGRESSIVE
“When a distinguished but
elderly scientist states that
something is possible, he is
almost certainly right. When
he states that something is
impossible, he is very
probably wrong.”
Sir Arthur C.
Clarke

13. Nature of Scientific Research
 Scientists formulate and test their
explanations of nature using observation,
experiments, and theoretical and
mathematical models.
 Although all scientific ideas are tentative and
subject to change and improvement in
principle, for most major ideas in science,
there is much experimental and observational
confirmation.
 Those ideas are not likely to change greatly in
the future.
 Scientists do and have changed their ideas

14. William Thomson – Age of Earth
•William Thomson, better known as Lord
Kelvin
Famous British physicists of the late
nineteenth century
•First trans-Atlantic telegraph cable.
•His estimates of the young age of the
earth, based on the best physics of the
late nineteenth century
•His view was influential and geologists
revised their theories to accommodate a

15. William Thomson – Age of Earth
•Kelvin's estimate of the age of the earth was
significantly revised after the discovery of
radioactivity in the early twentieth century.
•Much longer time spans replaced Kelvin's claims
 In 1904 Rutherford concluded his speech, before
the Royal Society, with a forthright statement of
the new order of things.
"The discovery of the radio-active elements, in
which their disintegration liberate enormous
amounts of energy, thus increases the possible limit
of the duration of life on this planet, and allows the
time claimed by the geologist and biologist for the
process of evolution"

16. Enrico Fermi – Transuranium
Elements
 The Italian physicist Enrico Fermi
 Nobel Prize in 1938 for two aspects of his work
 the slow neutron technique
 the "discovery" of "transuranium elements."
 The slow neutron technique proved useful in
future work.
 However, the "transuranium elements“ were
misinterpretations of his experimental results.
 Instead of creating new elements, heavier than
uranium, he was splitting the uranium atom,
thereby producing smaller, lighter elements.

17. Enrico Fermi – Transuranium
Elements
 In several papers in 1934, Fermi had suggested
that “ neutron bombardment of uranium would
produce an element one atomic number higher
than the 92 of uranium.”
 This hypothesis was plausible: other physicists
had shown similar effects for other elements.
 Fermi predicted that the expected new element
93 would have certain chemical properties, based
on its expected location in the periodic table.

18. Enrico Fermi – Transuranium
Elements
 His experimental results seemed to agree with
this prediction: among the mix of radioactive
products of the bombardment of uranium were
some substances with the expected chemistry.
 These substances were not any of the elements
from lead (80) up to uranium (92) in the periodic
table. Because they were not below uranium in
the periodic table and because they were not
uranium, Fermi thought that they must be above
uranium.

19.  Unlike the lower elements that absorbed the
bombarding neutrons, the uranium nucleus had
split almost in half.
 Other physicists soon sorted out the mistake,
leading to the discovery of fission
 The process used to make the atomic bomb
(Weart 1983).
 Fermi accepted the reinterpretation of his results
and went on to contribute to further work leading
to the use of fission in the atomic bomb (Segre
1970).

20.  In contrast, Pauling's model for another molecule-
- DNA--was rapidly superseded.
 Pauling's three strand model of the structure of
DNA, proposed in 1953, was bested in the same
year by James Watson and Francis Crick's two
strand, double helix model
 Pauling conceded his mistake and corrected a
small error in Watson and Crick's structure (Hager
1995).

21. Francis Crick: The Double Helix
and The Genetic Code
 In 1953, Watson and Crick (1953) determined the
correct structure of DNA, a double helix
 The story of the discovery of the double helix
model was told by Watson in his delightful book
The Double Helix (1968).
 Because there are four different bases in DNA but
twenty different amino acids in proteins, cracking
the code meant determining how many and which
bases correspond to which amino acids. If bases
were taken two at a time, the sixteen possible
combinations would not be enough. So the
minimal number of bases needed to code for one
amino acid appeared to be three.

22. Francis Crick: The Double Helix
and The Genetic Code
 In 1957, Crick, along with colleagues Griffith
and Orgel, published a paper in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (USA) entitled: "Codes Without
Commas.” This theory confronts with two
difficulties:
(1) Since there are...64 different triplets of four
nucleotides, why are there not 64 kinds of
amino acids?
(2) In reading the code, how does one know
how to choose the groups of three?

23. Crick, reflecting back on lessons learned from
his theoretical work said:
"Theorists in biology should realize that it
is...unlikely that they will produce a good
theory at their first attempt. It is amateurs who
have one big bright beautiful idea that they
can never abandon. Professionals know that
they have to produce theory after theory
before they are likely to hit the jackpot. The
very process of abandoning one theory for
another gives them a degree of critical
detachment that is almost essential if they are
to succeed"

24. Linus Pauling – DNA Structure
 The famous American chemist, Linus Pauling
 Helped to found the field of structural chemistry
with his important work on the nature of the
chemical bond
 Received the Nobel Prize in 1954.
 His structural analysis of proteins, showing what
he called an "alpha helix structure," has proved to
be an important structural component of proteins.

25. Linus Pauling – DNA Structure
 In 1953, Pauling visited Cambridge on
his way to a conference in Brussels.
 After seeing Franklin's photograph and
Watson and Crick's model, Pauling
gracefully conceded defeat.
 At the conference he said: "Although it is
only two months since Professor Corey
and I published our proposed structure
for nucleic acid, I think we must admit
that it is probably wrong”

26. Nature of Science
 None of the errors of these famous scientists
was due to fraud or misconduct.
 Given the theories and evidence available to
the scientist at the time, the hypotheses that
later failed were plausible.
 Publishing a plausible hypothesis plays the
important role of placing it in the marketplace
of scientific ideas.

27. Nature of Science
 The person who conceives the hypothesis
may not know the best methods for testing it.
 One scientist may publish a hypothesis and
stimulate another scientist to design a crucial
experiment to test it.
 Publishing a plausible hypothesis may save
other scientists needless work on a problem
and productively focus the gathering of further
evidence.

28. Good Ideas
In an interview, Linus Pauling said: A student once
asked me,
"Dr. Pauling, how do you go about having good
ideas?"
and I answered:
"You have a lot of ideas and you throw away the
bad ones.”

29. Your Ideas …

30. Your Ideas …
By constructing Dam we can overcome
the crisis of electricity
By storing flood water we can tackle the
destruction of water

31. Your Ideas …
We can control Ozone depletion by using
less air conditioners and refrigerators

32. Your Ideas …
By manipulating the BT cotton by
introducing insect resistant gene that can
kill all types of insects but don not effect
humans

33. Your Ideas …
These reasons ( Industrial waste, Smoke,
harmful gases & Noise) are causes of
pollution which in turn effect human
health and destroy environment

34. Your Ideas …
Increased rate of skin cancer is due to
Envirnomental pollution

35. Your Ideas …
Association of DGK ( Diacyle Glycerol
Kinase) gene in Pakistani patients with
hypospadiasis