Justin Kahn’s Wonderful and Fun Philosophy of Science Projects You Can Do At Home!

Like many non-scientists I am fascinated by what science has to offer by way of inquiry, innovation and explanation. Personally, I find philosophy of science to be a valuable way of investigating what science is and what science can be. In sharing my passion, I have found many to be intimidated by the lofty and abstract concepts that comprise philosophy of science. To bring home what philosophy of science has to say about the scientific pursuit, I have designed these fun, easy to do experiments.
(The reader is reminded that Justin is not a professional scientist and can not be held responsible for the safety of those conducting the experiments or those in the immediate vicinity of these experiments. These experiments are described for informational purposes only!)

Title: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
What You Will Need: A Pillow. A Fully Equipped Lab and Massive Amounts of Funding.
What You Will Do: Construct a device which can kill people on a massive scale. Now, lay down, resting your head on the pillow. Are you able to sleep? Next, try finding a cure for a disease. Like AIDS. Lay down, resting your head on the pillow. Are you able to sleep? Which of the two nights did you sleep better? Do you think it make senses to talk about responsibility in science? Now think about this: What if you chose to find a cure for a disease, but the first person you will be curing is a person who is working on the device to kill people? For the purpose of this experiment we will assume that your Massive Amounts of Funding comes from a front organization for a group of very malicious scientists. And now they are going to use your previous research on the killing device and make the device even more deadly. On the other hand, what if the person making the device to kill people is going to use it on the person who is manufacturing all of these diseases in the first place? Again, I’m not entirely sure that these diseases are being manufactured, but if you think about it, they have to be coming from somewhere. Now try doing nothing. Lay down, resting your head on the pillow. Are you able to sleep?

Title: The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living
What You Will Need: Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained, a Mead Notebook& a pot of coffee
What You Will Do: Combine the Scientific Method (Hypothesis, Procedures, Data Collection, Conclusion) with Transcendental Meditation (Introspection, Chanting Ohmm). Record your findings. Now review Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained. Has he really explained Consciousness? Did he miss something? Maybe a little, tiny bit of your own consciousness? Has he explained the aspect of our consciousness known as conscience? Think about this over a cup of coffee. Dennett also wrote a book called Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Based on what we know about Dennett do you think Darwin’s ideas are really that dangerous? (To test your work on this ask yourself, “Would I rather be trapped in a cage with the collected works of Charles Darwin or a cage containing an angry, juiced lion?”) As a bonus thought experiment, try to come up with more modest titles for Dennett’s works without going as far as titles like, “Some Stuff I Think I Might Know About Important Stuff.” Actually, that is kind of catchy.

Title: What is Science?
What You Will Need: Dry Ice. Regular Ice. A Balloon.
A Copy of Newton’s General Scholium, The Ghost of Einstein & 3 x 5 Index Cards
What You Will Do: Set the dry ice next to the regular ice. Note that they are both called ‘ice.’ Do they share the same properties? That was a rhetorical question. Of course not, yet both are called ice. Does that mean that the class of objects known as ‘ice’ does not exist? That ice is just a label slapped on to various objects at random?

Is there an essence of ice? Does ice definitely exist? Or not? Whichever position you take, defend your answer using the Scientific Method and/or Transcendental Meditation.

Next place the dry ice in the balloon. Tie the end of the balloon. I find this to be the most challenging part of any experiment I conduct. Usually I have my manservant do it for me, because the balloon always snaps away from my fingers. Since, I can’t very well expect my man servant to go trotting around the country helping everyone with their experiments, I should think that one of your servants or friends will be able to help you.

Now, read Newton. Is there any evidence that suggests he believes in a spiritual reality? Like God? Like him deftly mentioning God? Think about this very carefully: Should the General Scholium be taught in public schools? Do you think tax dollars should go towards getting your fifth grader reading Newton? Should your tax dollars go towards indoctrinating your fifth grader in the belief that virtually anything can be called Ice without consequence?

Pull yourself away from the reading. Look at the balloon. Notice how it inflated itself? Do you know how it has done that? Magic. But the important thing is that you have done a piece of real science. This should make you feel important.

Next, ask the ghost of Einstein what he thinks about the nature of science and the responsibility of the scientist. Record your findings on the Index cards. When you are ready, use the index cards to form the outline of paper called, “What is Science and How Does it Exist in the World?”