What does “nullius in verba” mean?
Technically, it means “take no one’s word.” It’s the motto of the Royal Society, which was initially founded to allow members to view demonstrations and discuss ideas that taught them about the natural world around them.
This phrase was a reminder to not simply accept ideas as we are told–it emphasizes the concept at the core of experiment: find things out for yourself, and verify your results through systematic methods.
How do we do science?
We follow the scientific method!
First, we identify a question to investigate. Oddly, this can be one of the most difficult parts–the question should be specific enough that it can be answered, but vague enough that it can be open to a variety of possible answers.
Next, we predict what we think the results will be. This is about more than just a guess; we develop a hypothesis by making logical conclusions based on what we already know to be true.
After we have a hypothesis, we design and conduct an experiment. We do this by first creating a reproducible procedure, which means that others could recreate the same results if they chose to. Collecting data from this experiment can happen in a variety of ways, typically depending on the question being asked.
Once data is collected, the next step would be to analyze it. Through using various statistical measures, graphs, and tables, we can identify patterns or important aspects of the data that help us answer our questions.
Finally, we pull out these patterns from the data to find conclusions to tell us more about the world around us.
When do the results of an experiment become accepted knowledge?
A law is a prediction of an event, and a theory is an explanation of an same event.
Scientific knowledge is constantly being revised and updated. With laws, they are less susceptible to change, since they weren’t devised for the sake of explaining existing data. Theories, however, are often subject to more debate, since they are explanations of something that has been previously observed. Typically, the most widely accepted theories are the ones that support the largest amount of data.
Sources:
alo2acs. (2017, November 20). Neil Degrasse Tyson explains How science works
[Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/udeF6EFUzkk
American Museum of Natural History. (n.d.). The Scientific Process. AMNG.org.
CrashCourse. (2018, March 27). Intro to History of Science: Crash Course
History of Science #1 [Video]. https://youtu.be/YvtCLceNf30
Matthew Rath. (2017, May 6). Neil Degrasse Tyson - Analogy for the scientific
method [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/6FvSXI2iBcA
TED-Ed. (2015, November 19). What’s the difference between a scientific law
and theory? - Matt Anticole [Video]. YouTube.
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