Talk:Scientific method
Cunctator and others
I edited out a lot of the older talk - we've achieved something a lot nearer a consensus now, so there doesn't seem to be the need for the raging debates of earlier. Anyone who wants to read it can press "View other revisions". - ManningBartlett
LDC - I really like the new article. I have only made one change - I altered "misconceptions" to philosophical foundations of the scientific method. I really like the way you have re-written the axiomatic viewpoint and I think it is fine as it is. I would also really like you to write an equivalent section explaining the viewpoint that "axioms are not necessary" - this would give the balan ce that the article needs. I also think that the "non-axiomatic" viewpoint should go first. -- MB
As far as verbs or adjectives - I like the verbs. As long as the surrounding language is consistent then it is fine. Using both verbs and adjectives seems redundant. -- MB
Some useful references from an earlier discussion:
http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio104/sci_meth.htm
http://phyun5.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html#SECTION02121000000000000000
http://pc65.frontier.osrhe.edu/hs/science/hsimeth.htm
More recent talk...
I removed this right after Cunctator added it:
- The steps are known as evidential, explanatory, predictive, verificatory, and consequential.
This adds no information that wasn't already there, and it gives the mistaken impression that there is some official consensus about the exact steps; that's just not true. Descriptions even disagree on the number of steps, or that there is any specific rigorous procedure at all; giving them official-sounding names just encourages people to memorize things and encourage teachers to put things on tests that won't help anyone understand the real concept. --LDC
- I'm with LDC on this. Let's either use verbs or adjectives, but both are unnecessary. - MB
How about a discussion on experimental error and its effect? What constitutes random error and what is a contradiction that warrants further investigation? Consider, for instance, the scientist who exposed a gold foil to alpha particle bombardment (I'm not sure if he knew that alpha radiation was due to helium nuclei) and expected all of the radiation to go through. Indeed most, did, but a very small amount bounced back. From what I've heard, the amount was so small that it could have been explained away as experimental error. The scientist didn't ignore it, however, because to him it was the equivalent of, "firing a sixteen inch shell at a sheet of tissue paper and having it bounce back at you," (not sure if the quote was his). Rutherford reasoned that there must be something increadebly small and solid that the radiation was bouncing off of. Thus the nuclear model of the atom was born and the plum pudding model was refuted.
Perhaps this deserves to be in some other article about data analysis, but it does warrant mentioning somewhere.
Also, it was Earnest Rutherford, right? --BlackGriffen
- experimental error and its effect deserves to be covered, but an article on the "Scientific Mehod" doesn't seem like the right place. - Any suggestions? MB
Debate on "an hypothesis" versus "a hypothesis" moved to talk:English language
Added reference to Thomas Kuhn. Personally I think he has a much more accurate description of what scientists do. -- Chenyu
I'm not convinced that Kuhn's ideas are contrary to the scientific method. But I'll let LDC argue that one, if he so chooses. --Stephen Gilbert
The mention of Kuhn seems fine to me. It states something that he believes, and that a lot of people take seriously (though I don't happen to be one of them). While I was here, I also removed the last occurences of "an hypothesis...". --LDC
- It is not the goal of science to answer irrelevant questions, only those which affect our lives
I think I understand what this sentence is trying to say, but it seems kinda clumsily worded. --Robert Merkel
- However, neither science nor scientific method itself do not rely on faith;
Damn double negative, coul you simplify this sentence ? --Taw
I cut this sentence... "Some post-modernists have gone even further and claimed that sociological mechanisms are the only content of science and thus, implicitly, science differs only in the details of its sociology from, say Druidic tree spirit beliefs as a description of reality."
Reason - it's two steps removed from the article. THe preceding sentence introduces how Kuhn said that sociological mechanisms are absent from the SM as traditionally presented. OK, that is relevant. This cut sentence then goes on to discuss the validity and significance of sociological mechanisms within science as a whole. I felt the sentence confuses the article and goes off on a tangent too unrelated to the main topic. - MMGB
Perhaps the use of the terms "falsify" "falsifiable" should be revisited. In my experience the connotations of these terms is closer to fraud or manufacturing a lie than it is to validate or invalidate.
The lengthy article falsifiable seems to imply that someone thinks it is technical term in use in scientific circles. Perhaps the phrases using the term could be rewritten using other terms such as validate, verify, etc. while leaving the link to falsifiable for readers interested in more detail. To me, falsifiable implies that it is possible to successfully lie about the results ... clearly not the intended concept which I assume to be more along the lines of "possible to validate or invalidate via known published methods". - user:Mirwin
- Mirwin, in scientific terminology that's precisely what falsifiable means. Academic psychologists commonly use the term (or actually the inverse "unfalsifiable") to describe Freud's theories, for instance. I would argue that introducing a fairly basic piece of jargon here (and linking to the definition) is preferable to using less precise terms. --Robert Merkel
- Excellent point. I agree with you. I was unaware that falsifiable is a term in use as precise technical term. Thanks for the eddification. user:mirwin
I prefer to proceed with the utmost caution through this article. To me there is a distinction between the concepts of scientific method as a topic of debate among philosophers, and scientific method as a practical tool-kit for the study and evaluation of a theory on any subject. The philosophers like this term "falsifiable", and with a little effort I like to believe that I can grasp what that doctrine denotes. Nevertheless, I distinguish between denotations which follow directly from a definition, and connotations which depend as much upon the readers experience with the word. Please believe me when I say that the word "falsifiable" carries a lot of uncontrolable baggage in the mind of the reader. Although the philosophers suggest that a hypothesis is in valid if it is not falsifiable, those who object to the practices of parapsychology seem to suggest exactly the opposite.
- I think most if not all scientists understand that "falsifiable" means that a hypothisis may be proven false, and that this is a crucial feature of any useful hypothesis. I have added a paranthetical in the article clarifying this.
- Please do not confuse "falsified" with "falsifiable." They are indeed similar words but are used in different ways. This by the way is common, at least in English. For example, I don't think any one would say the word "sanction" should be avoided in articles on diplomacy and international relations.
- the issue here is not what we mean by "falsifiable" but what we mean by "hypothesis." Testimony in a court, or other evidence, may be "falsified" in the sense of fraud. But a hypothesis does not make the same claims that court testimony or evidence does, and is not used to the same ends. Thus, the significance of the possibility that something is "false" is very different as well. slrubenstein
Upon reflection, I changed the numbered list near the start of the article to plain bullets. I think numbers make it sound to formal/official/rigid, when that's not really the case at all. --LDC