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Blog Post 2 Chapter 3

For this weeks blog post, I want to focus specifically on the concept of Scientific Argumentation. This is a topic that has been focused on in other courses I have taken, where I have learned the history of how science became the popular way of thinking about the world we live in. I want to connect my past experiences with this weeks text, to better understand the relationship between science and argumentation.

When science was still becoming more popular, being a "scientist" was not a recognized profession. Science was seen as a form of Philosophy, a way of thinking about the world we live in. It was more conjecture, rather than a formulated process. As the text states, it's only, "During the past 300 years or so, science has been recognized as a particularly powerful form of argumentation." This is due to the development of the scientific method, a now highly refined set of steps scientists take when analyzing arguments about our environment.

While science and argumentation are closely related, there are differences. The text explains that science is, "a human endeavor" that mankind has always strived to explain the why the world is the way it is. Now, while a basic component of science is forming an argument by outlining a way research has provided evidence to support a refute a claim, science has always had a "human" influence that keeps it from being purely objective. Over time however, science has become more refined and followed the set of rules of argumentation. This has been the biggest influence in science changing from being thought of as free thinking, to a tried and true method of argumentation.

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 25, 2018 at 10:05 PM

    Hey, Lucas! I enjoyed reading your post! Thank you for posting. I think using science as a tool to use in argumentation can be helpful in some cases. My question to you would be, what are some things that are "human" that science can't prove? I think about the story telling side of argumentation, how can science disprove a story? Sure, maybe there are certain factual things that can go against a story, but which would have more power to the punch? In my reflection, I used the story of the OJ Simpson trial. During this time DNA examination was coming up in the legal forensic work. The prosecutors had all the evidence in the world to prove that OJ was at the crime scene, hard cold facts. But, the only true reason OJ got away, was because of the narrative his defense team put on display. It shied away the facts, and the narrative won. How would the scientific method fight against a better told story than facts? Anyway, I loved reading your post! And I think that science is definitely revolutionizing the way arguments are being made. For example, without science we wouldn't know that ice is melting in places around the world where it shouldn't be. That would be an argument on what actions to take in order for it to stop. Keep up the good work!

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