History of Science and its relation to Sport and PE

Science is the background to the theoretical and practical knowledge we have acquired in sport and PE.

It is important, therefore, to understand a little of the history of science thus potentially gaining an appreciation of its affects on our profession.

Alternatively, understanding science a little better may aid in evaluating our own profession.

knowledge

deduction

unique solution

experimental data

induction

no unique solution

Information used:

Method used:

Expected results:

Deduction versus Induction

 Constructing a model – information, method, and results

 

1.Knowledge may be preliminary assumptions.2.In deductive model there may be many

assumptions.3.In inductive model there may be many

possible answers.

theories deduction prediction

induction

description

observation

facts facts

evaluation

“Science must start with facts and end with facts, no matter what theoretical structures it builds in between.”

Cyclical interaction between facts and theoryin scientific activities

1. Start with observation to build upon what is known.2. Describe what is known3. Use the known facts to come to general conclusions; induction)4. Develop and test the predictions of theories (models); deduction

5. Compare results with actual facts

6. Evaluate the process7. Seek additional facts8. Refine theories (models) and

possibly repeat the process

Sir Karl Popper 1902-1994 Popper suggested that science advances by

deductive falsification through a process of "conjectures and refutations." It is imagination and creativity, not induction, that generates real scientific theories, which is how Einstein could study the universe with no more than a piece of chalk. Experiment and observation test theories, not produce them.

Is Popper justified in assuming the Principle of Causality?

The origins of ScienceAll peoples that have ever lived have in some

way or another investigated one important question, which is …?

What is the meaning of our existence? or put another way, why are we here and what will become of us all?

These questions were answered in varying degrees by the world’s major religions and philosophers.

What do these questions have to do with science?

What beliefs were necessary to enable the development of

modern science?

Why did an explosive development of science occur in seventeenth century Europe? This development is one of the most significant events in human history.

Great civilisations

Great civilisations of the past and present such as India and China, Babylon, Aztecs, Mayans, Egypt, Greece and Rome, frequently had well developed social structures, magnificent architecture, drama and philosophy but nothing remotely equivalent to modern science.

They had great skill in wood and metal, ingenious mechanical contrivances and perceptive philosophical speculations about the world.

Great civilisations

Most of the great civilisations of the past were able to provide all the material requirements for the growth of science:

A leisured classTechnical skillsSystems of writing and mathematics

However, this was not enough.

What was needed for science to grow?

An attitude to the material world that is essential for science to flourish.

A social/political structure that will allow new scientific ideas to flourish.

What do we need to believe to become effective scientists?

Essentially that the material world is worthy of study, it is orderly and rational.

Knowledge gained must be open to the human mind and that this order cannot purely be obtained via pure mathematical thought but must involve experiments.

What was needed for science to grow?

In addition to these beliefs about the world itself, the development of science depends upon a social/political climate that allows knowledge gained to be freely shared.

Further, it must be shown that science has helped or improved peoples lives.

These beliefs when investigated have not occurred in human history until seventeenth century Europe.

For example, in ancient Greece a few individuals made an impressive start, but the social climate did not facilitate science to become a self sustaining enterprise.

The origins of science

Firstly, science was not distinguished from philosophy and its roots are to be found in the early struggles to make sense of the world.

However, before answers can be found, the right questions need to be asked.

What methods should we use to understand nature? How can we know that our answers are right? Why do things change? Is there an unchangeable reality behind the changes

that surround us?

Aristotle

He proposed a systematic attempt to explain the world/universe embracing all fields of activity from mathematics, physics and biology to politics, art and music.

He was an exceptionally acute observer with many of his observations not being surpassed until the invention of the microscope.

He was mainly concerned with general principles of nature and qualitative relations among things and not with precise quantitative analysis.

Aristotle

He believed in the eternity of the world, in a cyclical universe and that celestial matter was incorruptible unlike terrestrial matter.

These beliefs hindered science for almost two thousand years.

Hebraic and early Christian beliefs

The book of Genesis (book of beginnings) in contrast to the confused creation myths of the Greeks and other nations has a clear logical structure expresses belief in a absolute sovereign, rational and benevolent God.

The God of the Bible brings everything into being by His command.

Unlike Aristotle’s belief of a Primer Mover or First Cause (passive), God of the Bible is the cause of the very existence (interactive/sustaining) of the world and its continuance in being.

Therefore, the world must be rational and open to the human mind because man was given dominion of the world.

Hebraic and early Christian beliefs The early Church contradicted the infinite series of cycles of

history by presenting Christ’s life as part of linear history with a beginning and end.

For example, in the 3rd Century Lactantius rejected the stoic belief that God is within nature, and the Epicurean belief that the world is simply the product of chance, without any providential design. That is the world was created out of nothing.

John Philoponus (6th Century) expresses the early Christian belief by departing from Aristotle that all bodies will fall in a vacuum at speeds irrespective of their weight and projectiles are not moved by air but rather because they were given a certain quantity of motion. He based his ideas on the belief that the sun, moon and stars where given a certain kinetic force by God. Stars where not ether but real matter thus rejecting Aristotle’s distinction between celestial and terrestrial matter.

The Muslim Centuries The Muslim civilisation dominated the middle eastern

and western world from the eight to fourteenth centuries.

Here Greek works were translated mainly by Jewish scholars and a few Nestorian Christians that added to the knowledge of Muslim scholars in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and philosophy.

However, science did not flourish not because of the lack of resources but because Islam eventually decided that Allah dictates from instant to instant how everything behaves destroying any rationality in nature.

Reformation

Seventeenth century Europe’s explosion of science appears to be strongly linked to the pre-curser of the reformation where peoples of Europe were able to read the Bible for themselves in their own language and realise that God created an orderly and good world.

Early European science

Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253) is regarded as the founder of modern experimental science. He recommended the problem is first resolved into its simplest parts, and when understood the results can be combined to give explanation to the whole.

The observations and hypotheses will be verified or disproved by further observations and experiments. He investigated light as God first created light. He believed light is the most fundamental form of nature.

He noted mathematics are important but it has no objective reality but is simply abstractions from material bodies.

He insisted on quantitative measurement based on the Biblical insistence that there is a rational creator, who disposed everything in measure, number and weight.

Renaissance The strength of the renaissance essentially came from

understanding the motion of the heavens, via differential equations.

Copernicus (1473-1543) boldly put the sun in the centre of the solar system. Tycho Brahe (1546-16010 made careful measurements of the motions of the planets that enabled Kepler (1571-1630) to establish planetary orbits and the laws of planetary motion.

Meanwhile Galileo (1564-1642) worked on fundamental dynamical concepts such as mass, velocity, acceleration and momentum, expressing them in a precise mathematical form, with Newton (1642-1727) postulating his laws of motion and differential calculus.

NewtonNewton was strongly guided in his science by

his beliefs in the God of the Bible, for example he says:

“God created the world in accordance with his ideas of creation. These ideas are the pure archetypal forms that Plato termed ideas, and they can be understood by man as mathematical constructs … they can be understood by man, because man was created as a spiritual image of God. Physics is a reflection on the divine ideas of creation; therefore physics is divine service.”

Modern science Universities were founded by Christian institutions

where free discussion could take place, which fostered a culture and interest in the natural world.

However, despite the beliefs of the early scientists of the renaissance their work created scepticism because it destroyed the cosy idea of a man-centred world of the middle ages by a vast impersonal machine rather than a God being ascribed to natural causes.

From the mid-nineteenth century until today fundamental beliefs in the origins of the universe fuel scientific debate (c.f. Huxely-Wilberforce; Bohr-Einstein).

How and what we believe affects our practices in relation to science

S. African bushman are not concerned with time. They believe the future is uncertain and uncontrollable so it Is not good to think or worry about it. Better to live for the moment and eat heartily when there is plenty and starve stoically when there is nothing.

Buddhism/Taoism regards separating things and regarding ourselves as individuals as ignorant and stemming from a disturbed mind. Buddhists believe the division of nature into separate objects is not fundamental and any such objects have a fluid and ever-changing character, such as space-time.

Hinduism regards truth and beauty depend upon man whereas Einstein suggested truth is objective and independent of man.

Islam regards nature as continually changeable according to the will of Allah.

Soviet science made incredible progress but ultimately collapsed owing to the political ideology of communism.

Western materialism and the decline of Biblical values is also revealing a rapid decline in scientific endeavours.

Questions

Is the argument presented valid?What supporting or counter evidence

can you bring to the argument?Are there other explanations for science

developing in seventeen century?