Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

imagination, parts, creative, change, ulterior, durable, understandable, predictable, causality, localize, accompanied, bias, wholes

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scientific approach of the world

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1. at some level, no matter how complex our object of study gets, any system is                             understandable

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2. scientific ideas are subject to             change

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scientific theories can stand the test of time in terms of being evaluated, but they can always be replaced by or                       accompanied by other testable theories

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3. scientific knowledge is               durable

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the more a theory is tested and used in various contexts, the more it can be counted on as durable in and beyond those contexts

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4. there are always questions open

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5. science has to be reproducible and                       predictable

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6. science is a blend of logic and                       imagination

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critical thinking is necessary for reliability of theories

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                creative thinking is necessary to move past thinking blocks or to create new ways of approaching a problem when a previous paradigm is inadequate

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7. scientists try to identify and avoid         bias

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science is done by humans who get tired and frustrated, and who have                 ulterior motives for putting forth theories, all of this needs to be taken into account when evaluating and testing scientific theories

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two extremes of the scientific approach

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reductionism

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we understand complex systems by first understanding each of its           parts and completely understanding the                   causality between all of these parts

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e.g. to find the problem with your car, a reductionist mechanic would remove every single piece and examine each one

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holism

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we have to understand complex systems as             wholes and do not need to concern ourselves with how they are made up

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e.g. to find the problem with your car, a holist mechanic would suggest remedies such as to put better fuel in it or drive more slowly, he would not concern himself with the parts of the car

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applied science uses a combination of both approaches

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we understand a complex system as a whole in order to create tests which tend to                 localize the problem to one of the parts, then we examine those parts, make changes to them, reconnect them to the system, then run tests on the whole system again