Title of text

Discovering Astronomy 5th edition currently being revised for 6th edition

Author(s)

Shawl, S.J., Ashman, K.M., and Hufnagel, B.

Publisher/Source

Kendall/Hunt Publishers

URL

Intended audience

Undergraduate

Summary

Chapter 2 of this textbook is titled Science and Pseudoscience. Basically the chapter describes science as a process. That process is emphasized in a subsection titled Astronomy as a process and a major section titled Science as a Process. Specific examples are given: The face on Mars and the Martian meteorite and life. One way the process is emphasized is by means of a knowledge filter that shows how scientific information moves from initial ideas to inclusion in textbooks as accepted knowledge. The second half of the chapter contrasts the processes of science with those of pseudoscience. In that comparison it looks at science as a game in which there are specified rules that need to be followed asking if a hypothesis is at risk meaning that it could in principle be falsified giving simple answers to complex questions playing on fear and emotion and publication of ideas.

Process of Science Used or Emphasized within the Text

See above description.