Free About 1 hr0 learners Rev. 2026-10-20 0

In 1747 a ship's surgeon cured scurvy with two oranges and a lemon a day, and the navy took almost fifty years to act on it. In 1984 a doctor drank a flask of bacteria to prove what caused stomach ulcers. In 1846 an astronomer found a new planet by pointing his telescope where a mathematician told him to look. Each story turns on the same quiet question: how do we actually know?

This course answers it. You will trace the method from Ibn al-Haytham's dark rooms to the Royal Society, learn why the best ideas are the ones that could be proven wrong, and practice designing fair tests with controls, randomization and blinding. You will see how science works when experiments are impossible, why so many published studies failed to replicate, and how whole fields change their minds. You will finish able to weigh a scientific claim the way a good scientist would, which is a skill every citizen needs.

Levels

  1. 1 1. What Science Is: Testable Questions 5-question quiz
  2. 2 2. A Short History of the Method 5-question quiz
  3. 3 3. Hypotheses, Predictions and Falsifiability 5-question quiz
  4. 4 4. Designing a Fair Test 5-question quiz
  5. 5 5. Science Without Experiments 5-question quiz
  6. 6 6. Peer Review, Replication and Self-Correction 5-question quiz
  7. 7 7. How Science Changes Its Mind 5-question quiz
  8. 8 8. Science, Society and the Citizen 5-question quiz

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