 topic I'd like to discuss with you how to use a scientific method or process to create knowledge and at the same time to use this process to solve problems. Nowadays understanding and competency on the scientific process and how to use it is now an imperative to function meaningfully in an increasingly science-driven society. Scientific knowledge is characterized by certain elements. Objectivity that means one has to be unbiased if you are to practice science and the products of science must be an objective or unbiased knowledge system. It must also be credible as well as reliable. These are important in the creation of the scientific knowledge so that the result will provide you a logical and reasonable explanation of what you can observe as well as provide a probable predictions of events using the knowledge system. Talking about scientific objectivity and reliability and credibility, this equates to the value of advocacy, critical thinking, faithfulness to the facts that you are using and the absence of personal bias. All this must be now inputted in the different steps in the scientific process mainly and most importantly is in the problem identification and formulation. I believe that research must be problem-driven. Secondly, in the hypothesis generation as well, in the hypothesis testing as well and more importantly also in how you interpret the results of your experimental or scientific activity. Carl Popper is a prominent science philosopher of our generation and he says that scientific objectivity is freedom and responsibility of the researcher to pose refutable hypotheses meaning that the element of falsifiability is always in the content and consciousness of the researcher. This means that any knowledge system must be in the form that it is falsifiable or it can be proven false rather than proven true. He also says that to test this hypothesis without relevant evidence and to state the results in an ambiguous fashion accessible to any interested person for them to evaluate for themselves. Thomas Kuhn who is also one of our science philosophers observed however that it is very difficult to be objective. It is always in nature that we look at things within our own perspective and therefore it is theory-laden. It is almost impossible to make observation without being influenced by one's belief or theory or mindset or paradigm. As you see here science requires you to be objective yet it is acknowledged that we have difficulty being objective because we are by nature biased in how we look at things. Walter who is a one of the professors at the University of Queensland says that all scientists are directive to gather observations from the perspective of a particular theoretical framework. In other words we see things from our own bias eyelets. We see what we want to see. We believe in what we want to believe in and we practice this every day without being aware that we are citing Albert Georgie who is a noble awarding physiology and medicine says that to see what everyone has to have seen to think no one has thought about is the way to go and practice good science. Thomas Kuhn relates this to what he calls revolutionary science and he suggests the need to question current thinking by proposing alternative thinking and this must be something that is consciously done by anybody practicing science to always offer an alternative to what we have concluded and this lecture is about the very critical role of always having alternative paradigms in how we practice science. Critical for one to be scientifically objective to my mind in the practice of science is equipping one with a mindset that is less blind. Being able to formulate scientifically revolutionary questions that shall lead us to formulate global scientific models with more powerful explanatory and predictive values. The aim of this lecture is to provide some ways and insights in how one can be objective in the practice of science. It is not the intention of this lecture to dwell on the philosophical aspect of scientific objective. The central thesis of this lecture is that scientific objectivity in the conduct of the scientific method must consistently consider and weigh the merits of alternative theories in the formulation of the scientific question, the hypothesis, and the testing of hypotheses as well and more importantly in the interpretation of the results. This is to avoid being dogmatically influenced by what Kuhn referred to as the pitfalls of the theory-led observations. The nature of science is that the most common misunderstanding about science is that scientists seek and find truth. They don't, they make and test models. Making sense of anything means making models that can predict outcomes and accommodate observation. Truth is simply a model and this is from Neil Chug Senfield who is an American physicist. So in other words, science is about developing models. It's about developing and knowledge systems as how we interpret what we observe. It is not truth. It is simply a model. Now if we look at the scientific process, the most common scientific process now is the hypothetical deductive approach and it must be in the context of this thinking of falsificationism. The alternative of course is the inductive approach but there are problems when we are to use the inductive approach and Hemtel in 1965 referred to the problems of the inductive approach as the latent polyphoenix. The most accepted now is the hypothetical deductive approach and following this process there are some steps one has to follow. First and foremost the problem in question identification and formulation, hypothesis generation and formulation, hypothesis evaluation and testing through experimentation and interpretation of the results. This is now what is most accepted protocol in the scientific process. Moving into the problem identification and formulation, the requirement is that it must be tested. What does it mean? It means it must be subject to experimentation and the indicators and the results are detectable, measurable, differentiating and discriminating. Another good example is the question is the water hot or cold. Is this a scientific question? Can it be it can be privately answered by different people and therefore not a scientific question? It is also not possible to design an experiment to answer the question how to differentiate hot from cold, how to measure hot and cold, how to detect hot and cold. Moving now as I said earlier that alternative paradigms are very critical. The ecological question why is there an increase in the abundance of an organism over time in a defined area and let us now analyze this in the context of alternative paradigms. We can look at ecology from different levels of integration or organization. One can look at it from the organismic point of view. We can look at it as well from the population point of view, a community point of view as well as an ecosystem level point of view and each level has different fundamental assumptions. So if we are to ask the question why is there an increase in abundance of an organism over time in a defined area and if we are to look at this from the point of view of organismic framework or context the question has to be looked at from the point of view of the physiological, behavioral, genetic and morphological evolutionary adaptations of the organism. And if we are to compare this with the framework of population context the question has to be looked at from the point of view of what is the intrinsic rate of increase in population regulatory mechanisms involved in the population meaning why is the population increasing and what are the mechanisms behind the increase. As you will see the organismic is more looking at the behavioral, the physiological and the evolutionary adaptations while the population context is more on looking at the system at the population level rather than organismic. Moving forward if you are to now to look at it from the community context the issue or the question of why population increase can be looked at it from the point of view of species richness in the community why there are many species there and how it relates to population increase it can be in the context of food work architecture what is the complexity of the food work and how you relate this to the population increase. At the higher level of organization one can look at it from the point of view ecosystem and now you answer this question from the perspective of what is happening to the energy level or flow in the system and the nutrient cycling and availability that allows the population increase. So this is what I meant by looking at alternative paradigms when we now look at a question in the conduct of our scientific research. Having said that the question why is there an increase in abundance of an organism over time you need to find a link can also be looked at it from another framework we can look at it as well from the evolutionary context at the moment there are two schools of thought of how evolutionary and adaptation evolve first school says that organisms are subject to evolutionary forces that will optimize their fitness in their environment meaning individuals and the population continuously evolve new properties that allow them to survive in an environment the alternative however is organisms are subject to evolutionary forces but the idea of optimization of fitness does not occur so if you are now to interpret that question the assumptions in the first school of thought is very much different from the assumptions that you are making when you are to adapt the second school of thought. Proceeding the merits of alternative context of frameworks and paradigms in the identification and formulating questions into scientifically testable form should lead one to be a critical analysis of the fundamental assumptions of one's worldview and often revolutionary science is attained when one goes to look at the basic and fundamental assumptions and this is drawn when we ask questions and bring out alternative way of looking at things in other words having done something one has to be cautiously always looking for alternative explanations and this is what drives scientific process productive by this process objectivity is promoted and eventually if observed in the conduct of the scientific process shall result to a kind of scientific model that is revolutionary with stronger exploratory and predictive properties moving now on to the second step of the scientific process having discussed earlier the importance of alternative paradigms in the formulation of questions let's now see how this can be important in hypothesis generation and formulation a hypothesis is a possible answer to the question or a solution to the problem reductively generated meaning using existing acceptable theories to explain or to provide answers to the problem or question and these are from fundamental assumptions that have undergone rigorous scientific testing and prevailing accepted knowledge systems there are certain characteristics of hypothesis first and foremost it must be testable meaning it is supposed to be falsified a common problem in the practice of science is that we formulate hypothesis in such a way that it cannot be falsified and the only way the only reason therefore would be that it is accepted now that is somehow for ourselves we have to formulate hypothesis in a way that it can be rejected conditions are well defined when to reject hypothesis experimental design must be in a way that it can reject rather than accept hypothesis the word concepts that you are using must be well defined measurable discriminating and differentiating let us take an example in the case of species identification taxonomies by experience we have some idea which is actually hypothesis of the identity of an organism whether it is where what family genius it belongs or even the species being an expert in a group of organisms after having done that the taxonomies will be out using a what we call a taxonomic key which is actually a knowledge system developed by scientists themselves in the group of organism that you are interested hypothesis is accepted when the organism fits the taxonomic key in the description of the different organisms hypothesis on the other hand is rejected when the organism fits the taxonomic key description of another species when the organism does not fit unknown or undescribed species to science as a resulting conclusion a series you will see parameters are well defined it is detectable measurable differentiating and discriminating what are the fundamental assumptions of the species concept model in taxonomy right first species are evolving or constantly subject to change in morphology physiology behavior and genetics as they adapt to their environment there are morphological differences between species and these are evolutionary stable and consistently observable in all individuals of the species this morphological differences or what we call key species characters are reliable indicators of the presence of a reproductive gap between species and the reproductive gap is the ultimate determinant of species at least for animals have we said that taxonomic species as it is defined and operationalized it's not inclusive meaning cryptic species cannot be detected by this instrument what are cryptic species these are more morphologically scenic species but are not interrelated and therefore they are they belong to different species the species concept as used by taxonomies may not be functional when we are to talk about microorganisms and to a large extent when we use it for plants the point here is that the fundamental paradigm of a species used by taxonomies is not exclusive and does not apply to all if you are to search the literature there are 126 models of what a species is there is what we call morphological species concept and this is based on the morphological similarities and ignores other differences such as DNA or inability to reproduce between individuals there is also what we call the morphological species concept any group of organisms organisms that currently or potentially are produced with each other there is also ecological species concept defines a species as a group of interrelated organisms that occupy or adopt to a single niche there is also what we call the recognition species concept a set of organisms that can recognize each other as potential mates there is also what we call affinity species concept a set of organisms that are phenotypically similar and that look different from other sets of organisms another one is phylogenetic species concept now hypothesis generation and formulation must also bring to the open the relevant alternative paradigms that generated the hypothesis and are contextualized from the paradigm or framework that one is using and I'm referring here in this example the species concept that you are using now what species concept to use one requires you to examine the more deeper fundamental assumptions of your frame such as your concept of evolution adaptation speciation and how you interpret natural selection a very important mechanism in evolution alternative context of paradigms must be considered to maintain objectivity and credible scientific knowledge in terms of the explanatory and predictive value of the resulting scientific model and knowledge the value of being mindful of the alternative paradigms from where the question problem and hypothesis are contextualized is a leading one to examine the most fundamental assumptions and understanding the working paradigm from where the question and hypothesis are based on and how this is differentiated from alternative paradigms being aware of alternative paradigm should lead one to identify and use measurable parameters that are discriminating and differentiating between accepting and rejecting hypothesis the alternative paradigms should lead us to formulate hypothesis in a form that is falsifiable as well as design experimental tests of hypothesis that clearly defines the scenario when to reject each hypothesis both in the case of mutually acceptable and not mutually acceptable hypothesis in closing your assumptions are your windows on the world scrub them off every once in a while and the light won't come in and this is according to Isaac Asimov and to Bernard Baruch millions of the apple fall however it was only Newton to ask the question of why and why probably what led Newton to ask the question is something that is quite inspiring in other words asking the question of why the apple fall when there are millions having seen the apple fall probably at the time Newton has a question his framework of looking at his role was quite different from the millions also the apple fall as well and this is the kind of science that we need in school we are taught to see things by teaching us the prevailing theories and laws of our scientific discipline it is our hope that students after understanding these theories and laws will be critical enough and creative to provide their own original framework of how to see things how they how to see the world and offer alternatives this is to my mind how major discovery in science is made