The document provides an overview of climate change data and statistics concepts. It includes 3 figures showing land surface temperature data from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study with different timeframes and trend lines applied. It also lists topics to be covered in an intro to statistics course on climate change, including how to collect and interpret data ethically and reduce bias. Finally, it provides the reading list for the course, which covers evolution, Charles Darwin, and more.

1. Intro to Statistics: Climate Change
Figure 1: Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) land-only surface temperature data (green)
with linear trends applied to the timeframes 1973 to 1980, 1980 to 1988, 1988 to 1995, 1995 to
2001, 1998 to 2005, 2002 to 2010 (blue)

2. Figure 2: Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) land-only surface temperature data
(green) with linear treneds applied from 1973 to 2010 (red).

3. Figure 3: Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) land-only surface temperature data (green) with linear trends applied
to the timeframes 1973 to 1980, 1980 to 1988, 1988 to 1995, 1995 to 2001, 1998 to 2005, 2002 to 2010 (blue), and 1973 to
2010 (red).

4. What makes a “good” statistical
reading?
• How does one collect data so
as to:
– Maintain ethical integrity?
– Reflect the “real world”?
– Answer your goals regarding
science?
– Avoid mistakes of history?
• How does one interpret data
such that:
– Bias is reduced?
– Understanding is progressing?
– Dialogue is maintained?
• How does this use of data
relate to the following:
– Ethics
– History
– Emotion
– Reason
– Language

5. Week 13: Natural Science
AIO: Evolution
PP: Charles Darwin, Copernicus
Special audio notes on:
Intelligence Squared Debate:
“Religion and Science are incompatible”
Ted Talk: Ben Goldacre, “Bad Science”
• Readings:
1. 153-157
2. 158-164
3. 165-170
4. 171-176
5. 177-182
6. 183-189

6. Symphony of Science

7. Week 13: Natural Science
AIO: Evolution
PP: Charles Darwin, Copernicus
Special audio notes on:
Intelligence Squared Debate:
“Religion and Science are incompatible”
Ted Talk: Ben Goldacre, “Bad Science”
• Readings:
1. 153-157
2. 158-164
3. 165-170
4. 171-176
5. 177-182
6. 183-189

8. What is Science?
• From the following quotes, what 5 ideas emerge concerning
what Science actually is? Construct a single sentence def.
1. Real science is a revision in progress, always. It proceeds in fits and
starts of ignorance. -Stuart Firestein
2. Science does not purvey absolute truth, science is a mechanism. It’s
a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature, it’s a system for
testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they
match. – Isaac Asimov
3. Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of
knowledge. – Carl Sagan
4. One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured
against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most
precious thing we have. –Hans Muhsam
5. All of science is uncertain and subject to revision. The glory of science
is to imagine more than we can prove. - Freeman Dyson
6. One never notices what has been done; one can only see what
remains to be done… - Marie Curie
7. Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of
the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the
preceding generation. – Richard Feynman

9. 3 Ideas for the Week
1. Scientific knowing is an evolving system that limits
uncertainty through observation, experimentation, and
inductive/deductive reasoning.
2. Science as a language, ethos, and community reveals
innate features of human identity and processing.
3. Scientific objectivity and cultural diversity, particularly
religious knowing, are often at odds for various reasons.
Why?

11. • The most beautiful thing we can
experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and science.
– Who said this?

13. We live in a society exquisitely dependent
on science and technology, in which
hardly anyone knows anything about
science and technology.
-Carl Sagan

16. “Modern” Knowledge
• What types of knowing
exist in the modern world
without science?
• How might different
portraits and constraints
of Science change our
views of the world?
• Is all Science “progress”?
• How much of our
understanding of Science
is a reliance and
assumption of workability
(pragmatic) rather than
true “knowing”?

17. “Types” of Science?
• Natural Sciences:
– Space science
– Earth Science
– Life Science
– Chemistry
– Physics
• List 10 sub-categories in
your notes

18. Science and TOK Knower
• Science is a human
activity
– Involves different
activities including
thinking, observing
and communicating
– Reason and
Emotion; Sense
perception;
Language; Reason

19. Scientific Paradigm(s)
• A paradigm is a set of
practices that define
a scientific discipline
at any particular
period of time
• A thought pattern in
an area of
knowledge
• Underline the number
of different
“paradigms”
mentioned today.

20. Scientific Method
• From Aristotle to today,
humans have sought a
pattern to our world
encounters
• Developed alongside
architecture,
philosophy and history
• Roger Bacon (13th
century) and the
repeating cycle.
• Karl Popper (20th
c.) and
critical rationalism.

23. 3 Ideas for the Week (Review)
1. Scientific knowing is an evolving system that limits
uncertainty through observation, experimentation,
and inductive/deductive reasoning.
2. Science as a language, ethos, and community
reveals innate features of human identity and
processing.
3. Scientific objectivity and cultural diversity,
particularly religious knowing, are often at odds for
various reasons. Why?

24. The Bedrock: Observation
• Ways of Knowing:
– Put order from most to
least important
regarding
“observation”
• Sense perception,
emotion, reason, and
intuition
• Historical:
– How has our
understanding, our
ability, and our
limitations of
observation in science
developed over time?

25. Quite so! You have not observed. And
yet you have seen. That is just my point.
Now, I know that there are seventeen
steps, because I have both seen and
observed.

26. Activity: Double-Slit Experiment

27. Activity: Double-Slit Experiment

29. 4/16/15 Notes and Discussion
1. Discuss your chapter
observations
1. How is Scientific knowing
different than other areas?
Similar?
2. What is something
surprising so far from our
Science exploration?

30. Hypothesis
• Order the following to tell the “correct”
story.
1. I had made a mistake…
2. It seems to me much better…if you admit
in print that you were wrong
3. The universe could have started out in a
smooth and ordered…or lumpy and
disordered state.
4. Neither of these possibilities agrees with
what we observe…
5. The universe would…become lumpy and
disordered as time went on
6. One has to use a quantum theory of
gravity…
7. Some people never admit they are
wrong…
• How is “Hypothesizing” unique?
Consider in relation to other language,
such as “prediction”, “Guessing”,
“Intuition”, “Knowledge”.

31. Experiment
• Have you ever done
an “experiment”?
Describe your last
experiment and what
new knowledge was
gained.
• What are some of the
purposes of
Experiments?
• Does all natural
science require
“experiments”?

32. Science Aesthetic
• How might serendipity
and creativity relate to
natural discoveries,
research problems, or
even experimental
solutions?
• Is this “intuition” a valid
source of scientific
knowing?
• How is this similar and
different than “science
for science sake” we
often hear criticized in
society?

33. Serendipity as Science?
• Hofmann and LSD
• Fleming and penicillin
• Bequerel and
radioactivity
• Fleming and ?
• Roentgen and X-rays
• Kekule and benzene
• Leonardo
• Frank Dyson
• Archimdedes
• Damadian and Carr
with the MRI

34. It seemed so simple and obvious. I
don’t think it took a lot of insight as
much as naïveté
-Dudley Hershbach,
Nobel Prize Winner

36. Falsification and Repeatability
• From previous discussions, I
offered the following
theory of Knowledge as
“knowledge is just as much
about learning new things
as _________”
– How does this interact with
the scientific understanding
of “falsification”?
• What type of certainty can
science afford knowing its
methodological/natural
constraints?

37. Fill in the Blanks
• The A model of Science
does not prove anything.
One counter-example will
B the hypothesis. Thus,
scientists should make their
theories C. Science
should proceed through a
series of D and E. Scientists
should adopt a F attitude
called G.
• Word Bank: conjectures;
critical; disprove;
falsificationism; inductivist;
refutations; testable.

38. History of Science
• What anthropic
principles are involved
with the formation of
science?
• What fields of science
have persisted since
the beginning of
human thought?
– List 5

39. History
1. Metallurgy
2. Medicine
3. Greeks and
Natural Philosophy
4. Modern Science
5. Quantum
uncertainty and
relativism

40. Scientific Revolution (16-18th
c.)
• How does this time
period differ from
the gradual
evolution of
scientific thought in
the past?
• What are some
factors that
contribute to the
scientific revolution?

41. Scientific Thought Ordering
• Put in the right order. What does
the development of scientific
thought over time reveal?
• Put these statements in order:
1. Robert Hooke showed that plants
are made of compartments
2. They remind him of monks’ “cells”
3. Robert Brown observed and
named the “nucleus”
4. In the 17th
century, most scientists
believed that life arose by
spontaneous generation from
dead matter.
5. Robert Remak first described the
division of cells to make new ones

42. The Evolution and Application of Theory
• Paradigms shift when:
– Too many “anomalies”
in the old make a new
model more useful
– Can clarify, not
remake, the old
paradigm
– Can yield greater
clarity, potential and
progress for future
knowing.

43. Science as Community
1. What “external pressures”
exist in modern science?
How does this affect
research and knowing?
2. What types of Scientific
Misconduct might there
be?
3. “Publish or perish” is a
growing phenomena in
academia. What are some
advantages and
disadvantages?
4. What types of scientific
careers are there? How
might it change the
“community”?

44. Science as Community
• whether it’s the academic
psychologists doing the
research, the statisticians they
collaborate with, the academic
journal editors and reviewers
who decide whether or not the
paper gets an easy ride into
print, the press officers who
decide whether or not to
shepherd its findings towards
the public, or even, finally, the
bloggers and journalists who
write about it. At every step,
there is room for fun results to
get through, and for
unwelcome results to fall off the
radar.

45. Scientific Misconduct
• A pooled weighted average of 1.97%
(N = 7, 95%CI: 0.86–4.45) of scientists
admitted to have fabricated, falsified
or modified data or results at least
once –a serious form of misconduct by
any standard– and up to 33.7%
admitted other questionable research
practices. In surveys asking about the
behaviour of colleagues, admission
rates were 14.12% (N = 12, 95% CI:
9.91–19.72) for falsification, and up to
72% for other questionable research
practices. Meta-regression showed
that self reports surveys, surveys using
the words “falsification” or
“fabrication”, and mailed surveys
yielded lower percentages of
misconduct. When these factors were
controlled for, misconduct was
reported more frequently by
medical/pharmacological researchers
than others.
Fanelli, Daniele. “How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A
Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data.” PLoS ONE 4.5 (2009):
e5738. PLoS ONE. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

46. What’s in a Name?
“Application and
Research of Smalltalk
Harnessing Based on
Game-Theoretic
Symmetries"; "An
Evaluation of E-Business
with Fin"; and "Simulating
Flip-Flop Gates Using
Peer-to-Peer
Methodologies,"

47. Scientific Ethics: Necessary?
• What sorts of ethical
presuppositions should
be in place for science
to:
– Function honestly and
accurately?
– Preserve its integrity in
promoting knowledge?
– Preserve its character as
advancing humanity?

48. 7 Rules of Scientific Conduct
1. Act with skill and care, keep
skills up to date
2. Prevent corrupt practice and
declare conflicts of interest
3. Respect and acknowledge the
work of other scientists
4. Ensure that research is justified
and lawful
5. Minimize impacts on people,
animals and the environment
6. Discuss issues science raises for
society
7. Do not mislead; present
evidence honestly

49. Science and Culture
• What factors within
different cultural
groups may influence
Scientific knowing?
• Can one defend an
objective Scientific
claim as a global truth
apart from culture?

50. Science and Reason
• Reason, much like
Science, is often
presented devoid of
substance beyond
cold calculation and
experimentation.
• How do we reason
when we do science,
not just from
experiments, but
moving towards a
philosophical
framework of knowing?

52. Science and Politics
• What misconceptions
about science exist
within the political way
of thinking?
• Consider:
– Education Policy
– Voting demographics
– Global Economy
– Environment/Business

53. Activity: What is in the box?
• In 30 seconds, list out
everything that could
fit in this box.
• You will receive an
object out of the box.
• As a class, put them in
order on the front desk.
• You can’t talk to each
other about your
object, or about the
placement.
• Write a TOK question
about this activity.

54. Science and Religion
• Watch the concluding
statements to the motion
“Science Refutes God”
1. Identify three distinct
arguments from each
side.
2. What TOK
observations can you
make in the areas of
knowing emphasized
or in conflict?
3. What presuppositions
do each side
operate within?