Goals of science
•Describe the patterns that are found in
the natural
world
–Purely descriptive in nature
–Historically this was “ecology”,
a.k.a. naturalism
•Make up explanations and then stop
there
•Test Explanation of Patterns
–This is the major emphasis of most of
what we usually call “science”
–Key component: TEST these
explanations!
•How to test these explanations?
–The Scientific Method