how us course scientific uncertainty due

How The US is Getting a Crash Course in Scientific Uncertainty Due to the Pandemic – The New York Times August 24, 2021 News Analysis As the pandemic takes an unexpected direction, Americans again must reckon with twists in scientific understanding of the virus.

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What does the public disagreements and debates play out in public, instead of at obscure conferences, do?

What do scientists do in the interim?

How to educate the public and win their trust?

How do researchers test a hypothesis?

Why do health officials need to be more nimble?

Is science moving at a fast pace?

Is the road ahead difficult?

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What is the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics?

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that the there will always be residual uncertainty for some observables. If we attempt to refine our knowledge of the position of an electron, our measurement process will inflate the uncertainty in its momentum. The product of the uncertainties in position and momentum has a fundamental minimum set by Planck’s constant.

What is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that the there will always be residual uncertainty for some observables.

Can medical preconditions affect rare outcomes?

Of course, medical preconditions could strongly affect rare outcomes like death from COVID-19. Events in real life often stem from a confluence of many causes, making them difficult to decipher. Only under special circumstances is it possible to identify unambiguously the main cause of a phenomenon. This is the reason behind controlled scientific experiments, which offer the opportunity to isolate one influence at a time in the quest for better understanding.

Does nature play dice?

Contrary to Albert Einstein’s letter to Max Born in 1926, we now know that nature does plays dice. There is always some probability that we might die after being infected by COVID-19. Those attending pool parties without social distancing play Russian roulette. Most of them will survive, but some will die.

Do we have to know all the facts to make decisions?

We’re inevitably forced to make decisions without knowing all of the facts

Can we predict the future of the electron?

This implies that even if we retrieve all available information through a perfect experiment, we would still be unable to forecast the future of the electron deterministically. Traditionally, our life was shaped by massive objects, such as the car we drive in, for which Heisenberg’s uncertainty is entirely negligible. But with the advent of information technology, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, the quantum world may end up shaping medical decisions in life and death situations. The bedrock of reality is probabilistic. We can only assign likelihoods to different outcomes.

Why do researchers use uncertainty?

Researchers use uncertainty to express how confident they are about results, to indicate what scientists don’t yet know, or to characterise information that is by nature never black and white. But saying that something is ‘uncertain’ in everyday language has a negative connotation. When a researcher says ‘the predictions we made on the basis of our research have a margin of uncertainty’, they mean they are very confident that the outcome will fall within the predicted range. But a commentator is likely to understand from this ‘the piece of research is unreliable’. [page 5]

What is the core value of science?

The core value underpinning science is the idea of being open to the possibility of new knowledge or information. This means that scientists often express a small degree of uncertainty, even in cases where the vast majority of evidence points to one conclusion.

What is scientific theory?

A scientific theory (such as the theory that infectious diseases come from germs) is not just a guess, it is a well supported understanding based on the highest quality of available evidence. If an idea about the world was not yet backed up by fact, it would be called a hypothesis.

Does science know everything?

However, just because science does not know everything about a particular topic that does not mean that it does not know anything. Every piece of scientific research makes up a tiny part of a wider puzzle of knowledge on a topic.

Is uncertainty a part of science?

When we look to science to answer questions about the world around us, we often expect those answers to be certain. However, uncertainty is a normal part of science.

About this Course

This course teaches the fundamentals of scientific research. We approach the research process as a means of systematically reducing uncertainty and demonstrate how conducting a scientific investigation can be posed as an exercise in Bayesian uncertainty quantification.

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The mission of The Johns Hopkins University is to educate its students and cultivate their capacity for life-long learning, to foster independent and original research, and to bring the benefits of discovery to the world.

Introduction to the Research Landscape

In this module, you will be introduced to the landscape of scientific research. Why do we perform research? Who conducts research and where do they conduct it? What different kinds of research are undertaken? Why are the various types of research important?

Scientific Inquiry

In this module, you will be introduced to the fundamentals of scientific inquiry. What makes an investigation scientific? How do we tell the difference between a scientific and a non-scientific inquiry?

Scientific Method & the Research Process

In this module, you will be introduced to the different methods of inquiry, most notably the scientific method. You will learn the terminology used in scientific inquiries and define hypotheses and theories. You will learn the steps of the research process and how the research process is scientific.

Uncertainty & Probability

In this module, you will learn about the different types of uncertainty and how these uncertainties are modeled. You will learn some fundamentals in probability theory, specifically conditional probabilities and Bayes’ Rule, necessary to understand how uncertainty is modeled.

What does the public disagreements and debates play out in public, instead of at obscure conferences, do?

The public disagreements and debates played out in public, instead of at obscure conferences, give the false impression that science is arbitrary or that scientists are making things up as they go along.

What do scientists do in the interim?

In the interim, scientists present the findings to their peers, often at niche conferences that are off-limits to journalists and the general public, and hone their ideas based on the feedback they receive. It’s not unusual to see attendees at these meetings point out — sometimes harshly — every flaw in a study’s methods or conclusions, sending the author back to the lab for more experiments.

How to educate the public and win their trust?

The first step toward educating the public and winning their trust is to make plans, and then communicate them honestly — flaws, uncertainty and all.

How do researchers test a hypothesis?

Researchers first frame the hypothesis, then design experiments to test it. Data from hundreds of studies, often by competing teams, are analyzed before the community of experts comes to a conclusion.

Why do health officials need to be more nimble?

And health officials need to be more nimble, so that bad actors don’t define the narrative while real advice is delayed by a traditionally cumbersome bureaucracy.

Is science moving at a fast pace?

Americans are living with science as it unfolds in real time. The process has always been fluid, unpredictable. But rarely has it moved at this speed, leaving citizens to confront research findings as soon as they land at the front door, a stream of deliveries that no one ordered and no one wants.

Is the road ahead difficult?

The road ahead will be difficult . The virus has more surprises in store, and the myths that have already become entrenched will be hard to erase.