The basic understanding which underlies scientific evidence - ideas such as the structure of experiments, causality, repeatability, validity and reliability- is not straightforward. But these ideas are needed to judge evidence in school science, in physics or chemistry or biology or psychology, in undergraduate science, and in understanding everyday issues to do with science. It is essential to be able to be critical of scientific evidence. The authors clearly set out the principles of investigation so that the reader will be (...) confident in questioning the experts, making an informed choice or arriving at in informed opinion. The book is intended for a wide range of readers including those who want to: } collect their own evidence } be able to question and judge a wide range of science-based issues that we come across in the press or other media in everyday life } teach others how to understand evidence. This book has been developed from the authors' work with first year undergraduates in a combined science course and in primary teacher training for science specialists. It is suitable for students training as primary science specialists, and also for 'A' level and first-year undergraduates in science and science-related subjects. (shrink)

The end of the nineteenth century and the whole of the twentieth may justifiably be called a time of great discoveries in the micro-, macro-, and megaworlds. All bearing witness to the dynamic life of the universe, these discoveries have resulted primarily from progress in the instruments of research, leading to the discovery of many new elementary particles, new forms of interaction, fields, and astrophysical objects — quasars, pulsars, sources of X-ray emissions, and others. An understanding of the essence of (...) the processes involved in these objects and phenomena, however, comes up against certain difficulties , the overcoming of which is to be sought primarily along the lines of further improvement of the tools of research and processing of the information acquired, the application of existing theories and the development of new ones in physics and astrophysics, and the utilization of the achievements of the science of the most general laws of the motion and development of nature, society, and thought, i.e., dialectical materialism, as the general methodology of acquisition of scientific knowledge. (shrink)