What is this thing called science?

[Moonwood the Hare]

In the Demonstration thread we got into quite a lot of talk about the so-called scientific method. I actually found it quite hard to get anyone to clarify what they thought this scientific method was. Several posts ago someone said to me that I ought to do some reading because I did not seem to know what the scientific method was. As it turned out I suspect I had done a bit more reading on that than he had. Well the scientific method comes up a lot because people want to argue that it is a much better way to truth than the so-called religious method or that because we have discovered a lot of stuff using this method religious belief, and specifically belief in God has become obsolete. I think this pinched from the freethought funnies page would sum up the idea.
So I wanted to open up the question what do people think the scientific method is? Does the above sketch illustrate how science really works or is this just a fanciful reconstruction by rationalist philosophers? Do people think the scientific method is the only way of discovering truth? Do people think it is the best way of discovering truth? Or is the value of science really in its utility as some have suggested.

[Keep The Reason]

The above sketch is fairly accurate in providing a 30,000-foot view of the scientific method. I take issue with the term "bad idea" because it may not be a bad idea if it were not supported by evidence; it may be a facutal and truthful idea, but present technology might not be able to support it yet.

I also take issue with the "ignore all contradicting evidence" on the faith-based side. There's no "contradicting evidence" to the assertion of a heaven (or hell) for instance -- while I believe it's a specious assertion and don't believe in it myself, that doesn't mean that people who do believe in it are "ignoring contradicting evidence". There's no information on it one way or the other.

My take: The scientific method is a disciplined approach used to maximize our knowledge of a premise to be able to come as close as possible to objective truth as we are able. It requires certain distinct milestones such as predictive value, concrete evidence, demonstrability, repeatablility, falsification, corroboration, and review by others. You cannot edit out any of these from the scientific method and maintain the scientific method itself.

If you're going to compare it to faith-based approaches, other than a sort of casual "review" by others, I don't believe that faith-based methodology embraces any of those criteria that exists oin the scientific method.

[mitchellmckain]

The scientific method explained in this diagram is not quite correct and this so called "faith based methodology" is a pure invention of rhetoric and complete bosh. The one on science is missing the critical role of the scientific community which is where the real test of an idea is made, and it is missing other critical aspects of what is going on. As it is written here this can be used by lawyers and salesmen to support a very one sided agenda. Furthermore an explanation of science is incomplete without an understanding of the driving force of it for that is an important part of what pushes its work in directions with a certain kind of utility. It is because of this last aspect of science that it is not quite correct to say that science is simply an purely about finding the truth about things. That is not to say that such a motivation plays no role in the methodology because it does in some rather admirable ways. This is in fact one of the things wrong with the top part of the diagram, which is not about whether "the evidence supports the idea" (that is actually what salesmen, lawyers and creationists do) but simply which answer to the question does the results of the written proceedure (whether experimental or computational) give, and NEITHER answer EVER says "bad idea". Any idea which gives a result of either yes or no is a GOOD IDEA. Searching for new ideas to find something that gives a positive result for an agenda is the work of pseudoscience. But whether the answer is yes or no, real scientific inquiry advances forward.

Obviously there is a lot I haven't explained yet because there is too much and I am tired. So little by little....

[Aaron]

Good thoughts Mitch. Just as in the same way a successful job interview is one in which the employer receives an accurate view of who you are and what you can and can't do. An interview in which you are honest and it is made clear you the candidate don't meet the qualifications and consequently you don't get the job is a successful interview. And likewise an interview in which you deceive your employer and consequently get the job is not a successful interview.

A theory proved wrong is not a step backward. Rather it's a valuable expansion of knowledge.

[gary_s]

In the Demonstration thread we got into quite a lot of talk about the so-called scientific method. I actually found it quite hard to get anyone to clarify what they thought this scientific method was.

Actually, I think that's your perspective on it. I know I attempted to give you a general description and explained that the details are of less importance because they may be influenced by particular fields of study, but you seemed dissatisfied with my answers. Interestingly, this diagram you have presented here matches my descriptions pretty closely. I concur with Mitch's assertion that the peer review step is missing and that there are may fine details, but again, those are highly dependent on other factors.

So I wanted to open up the question what do people think the scientific method is? Does the above sketch illustrate how science really works or is this just a fanciful reconstruction by rationalist philosophers? Do people think the scientific method is the only way of discovering truth? Do people think it is the best way of discovering truth? Or is the value of science really in its utility as some have suggested.

The descriptions so far have done a good job of defining the SM. As I think I said numerous times on the other thread, it's not a complicated process. It doesn't take a lot of explanation to get a good picture of what the SM is. In fact, the more general a description one uses, I would say is a better description because it doesn't limit it to one specific area of study. For instance, if I go into the importance and application of double blinded studies, this becomes a nearly meaningless protrusion on the sciences of say, geology and paleontology, but it is absolutely necessary for medical science.

But your questions are very wide open, Moon. I don't think it's fair to ask questions like: "Do people think the scientific method is the only way of discovering truth?". Well, what kind of truth? What kind of questions? Not all questions are fit for a scientific examination.

[gary_s]

The scientific method explained in this diagram is not quite correct and this so called "faith based methodology" is a pure invention of rhetoric and complete bosh.

Mitch, I'm curious about why you say this. Can you elaborate on what is so incorrect about this diagram? IOW, how is faith different than the diagram?

Furthermore an explanation of science is incomplete without an understanding of the driving force of it for that is an important part of what pushes its work in directions with a certain kind of utility. It is because of this last aspect of science that it is not quite correct to say that science is simply an purely about finding the truth about things. That is not to say that such a motivation plays no role in the methodology because it does in some rather admirable ways.

So far I disagree with this conclusion, Mitch, but I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Could you elaborate? The reason I challenge you on this is because there can be numerous driving forces behind work in science, anything from necessity to pure curiosity. However, the quality of the answers have no allegiance to the idea. IOW, each idea, no matter where is came from or why, deserves an answer that is both accurate and reliable and the SM is a very good tool for providing such an answer. It doesn't change how the method works because the driving force is different, at least in my way of thinking. I'm curious to know why you say it does.

This is in fact one of the things wrong with the top part of the diagram, which is not about whether "the evidence supports the idea" (that is actually what salesmen, lawyers and creationists do) but simply which answer to the question does the results of the written proceedure (whether experimental or computational) give, and NEITHER answer EVER says "bad idea". Any idea which gives a result of either yes or no is a GOOD IDEA.

Yes, I think I understand what you mean here and if I'm understanding correctly, then I agree. So long as a procedure is done correctly, the answer is always good, whether it confirms your idea or not, you have learned something new. Getting the answer you want with bad procedures is far worse than getting the answer you didn't want using the correct procedures, because you didn't actually learn anything. This is what most pseudo-science is made of, people seeking a specific answer and using whatever procedure they feel will get them there.

Searching for new ideas to find something that gives a positive result for an agenda is the work of pseudoscience. But whether the answer is yes or no, real scientific inquiry advances forward.

Yes, it is good to point this out.

[gary_s]

Found an interesting web site regarding this question:

http://www.scientificmethod.com

[Keep The Reason]

gary, I went to your link and it only shows:

NORMAN W. EDMUND
1916 - 2012

No other navigation allowed.

[Rian]

One interesting thing about the scientific method - when I was in high school, many years ago, the theory of evolution was rightly recognized as having some pretty major historical aspects (i.e., you can't run an experiment and have fossils change if you change some parts of the experiment) and repeatability was a MAJOR part of the scientific method. But as the evolution wars heated up, I noticed that the repeatability aspect was slowly but surely disappearing from more and more diagrams. I'm guessing this was because the people who were opposed to the theory of evolution being treated at the same level as the non-historical sciences kept bringing up that important fact - historical evidence cannot change as the factors in experiments change. You can't say "hey, I think birds came from dinosaurs, let's run a test" and the fossils look one way, and then "hey, I think birds came from reptiles, let's run a test" and the fossils look another way.

Now obviously this diagram isn't a super descriptive or technical one, but it's interesting that repeatability isn't in this one, either.

[gary_s]

gary, I went to your link and it only shows:

NORMAN W. EDMUND
1916 - 2012

No other navigation allowed.

Thanks. That's one poorly set up website. Here a link to a sub page. Mr. Edmund appears to have expired and the home page is now a sort of memorial.

http://www.scientificmethod.com/sm4_stepsofsm.html

[gary_s]

One interesting thing about the scientific method - when I was in high school, many years ago, the theory of evolution was rightly recognized as having some pretty major historical aspects (i.e., you can't run an experiment and have fossils change if you change some parts of the experiment) and repeatability was a MAJOR part of the scientific method. But as the evolution wars heated up, I noticed that the repeatability aspect was slowly but surely disappearing from more and more diagrams. I'm guessing this was because the people who were opposed to the theory of evolution being treated at the same level as the non-historical sciences kept bringing up that important fact - historical evidence cannot change as the factors in experiments change. You can't say "hey, I think birds came from dinosaurs, let's run a test" and the fossils look one way, and then "hey, I think birds came from reptiles, let's run a test" and the fossils look another way.

Well, first of all, your suggestion Evolution as a "historical science" is rather meaningless. Evolutionary theory consists of numerous different fields of science, among those is biology and chiefly among those is genetics. Now, I dare you to tell me that there are no instances of repeatability in biology and genetics. In terms of geology, climate science, paleontology and others certainly have an aspect of discovery and inference that doesn't allow for repeatable laboratory experiments, but to say that this is all that makes up Evolutionary Theory is extremely short sighted. All of the fields of science converge to form a lasting and robust theory. Actually, you are incorrect about the "tests" one might conduct to determine a living creature's heritage. Genetics does this all the time and there are numerous ways in which it can be repeated and cross-checked.

One other thing you mentioned is nothing but a creationist talking point, the term "evolution wars". That term, to me, carries with it a level of controversy and ignorance. Among scientists there is no such thing as this war. Creationists and ID proponents (really the same thing), have made up terms like this and the war on Christmas to get their wedge theories across and make as much noise for their base as possible. If you bring terms like this to the table, then you aren't really bringing anything of value at all.

Now obviously this diagram isn't a super descriptive or technical one, but it's interesting that repeatability isn't in this one, either.

That's what Mitch was pointing out and I concurred.

[Rian]

One interesting thing about the scientific method - when I was in high school, many years ago, the theory of evolution was rightly recognized as having some pretty major historical aspects (i.e., you can't run an experiment and have fossils change if you change some parts of the experiment) and repeatability was a MAJOR part of the scientific method. But as the evolution wars heated up, I noticed that the repeatability aspect was slowly but surely disappearing from more and more diagrams. I'm guessing this was because the people who were opposed to the theory of evolution being treated at the same level as the non-historical sciences kept bringing up that important fact - historical evidence cannot change as the factors in experiments change. You can't say "hey, I think birds came from dinosaurs, let's run a test" and the fossils look one way, and then "hey, I think birds came from reptiles, let's run a test" and the fossils look another way.

Well, first of all, your suggestion Evolution as a "historical science" is rather meaningless.

OK, I'm going to ask you to re-read my post, because you're saying I'm saying things that I'm not saying here. This tends to be an emotional topic, so just please don't jump ahead and assume this is going to be a hard-line creationist post, because I'm certainly NOT a hard-line creationist by any means.

I didn't say it was a "historical science" here - what I did say was it had some pretty major historical aspects. Would you agree with that?

I've called it a historical science in the past, because I think that's a better characterization overall because major parts of the theory are of a historical nature, but I purposefully didn't say that here because people tend to assume that I mean every part is historical. I've never said that every part is historical.

Evolutionary theory consists of numerous different fields of science, among those is biology and chiefly among those is genetics. Now, I dare you to tell me that there are no instances of repeatability in biology and genetics.

No dare needed - I completely agree with everything you said here. I'm interested in truth and accurate representation.

In terms of geology, climate science, paleontology and others certainly have an aspect of discovery and inference that doesn't allow for repeatable laboratory experiments, but to say that this is all that makes up Evolutionary Theory is extremely short sighted.

I agree, and I don't say that.

All of the fields of science converge to form a lasting and robust theory.

With some major historical aspects that cannot be tested. But they do the best that they can with what they have. They can't help that the very nature of the thing is that major parts are historical, and thus cannot be tested in the same way as non-historical parts. I would hope you agree that things that can be subjected to the full scientific method, complete with repeatability, should be given at least slightly higher validation than things that cannot.

Actually, you are incorrect about the "tests" one might conduct to determine a living creature's heritage. Genetics does this all the time and there are numerous ways in which it can be repeated and cross-checked.

Back to the one-celled prototype of all life (or whatever the current name is)? No.

One other thing you mentioned is nothing but a creationist talking point, the term "evolution wars". That term, to me, carries with it a level of controversy and ignorance. Among scientists there is no such thing as this war. Creationists and ID proponents (really the same thing), have made up terms like this and the war on Christmas to get their wedge theories across and make as much noise for their base as possible. If you bring terms like this to the table, then you aren't really bringing anything of value at all.

I think it is a valid observation of what we often see in our culture. Again, you might be reading into my post what wasn't there - I wasn't saying it was a war among scientists. It certainly does get pretty heated in public discussions, though.

Now obviously this diagram isn't a super descriptive or technical one, but it's interesting that repeatability isn't in this one, either.

That's what Mitch was pointing out and I concurred.

And I'm agreeing with, and pointing out that one of the bits left out is the repeatability part.

Another interesting side-effect of the lesser emphasis on repeatability is how some people are now taking charts like this and saying that they apply the scientific method to decisions in their life, when all they really mean is that they're thinking about their decisions. But borrowing the term "science" makes it sound more important and official, I guess. When repeatability is in there, it's harder to make this claim, because there are so many decisions that you can't repeat and retest.

Anyway, I find it interesting that we just can't keep our humanness out of things (my brother-in-law, a PhD at Stanford, saw a surveillance video of one scientist going into another scientist's lab in the middle of the night and peeing on his experiment! ). I doubt if the repeatability part would have been dropped like this if the evolution wars hadn't happened.

[Moonwood the Hare]

The above sketch is fairly accurate in providing a 30,000-foot view of the scientific method. I take issue with the term "bad idea" because it may not be a bad idea if it were not supported by evidence; it may be a facutal and truthful idea, but present technology might not be able to support it yet.

A lot on this thread already but just to make a start. I think Mitch says later and gary concurs that in science a good idea and a true idea are not the same. He suggests that a good idea, in empirical science is falsifiable. I don't think that is always the case bur it does break us away from the idea of science having to verify theories which is highly implausible (verify meaning prove true not have some evidence for). It's also intriguing that on this view you don't even have a theory until you have done an experiment. So for example when Einstein proposed his theory of relativity and came up with some possible tests for it, it was not yet a theory just an idea - weird. But of course science never starts in the middle of nowhere so you always have some evidence for a theory because the observations that lead you to formulate the theory, and they can be very general ones, are the evidence, even though they are not new evidence and may be evidence for more than one conflicting theory..

I also take issue with the "ignore all contradicting evidence" on the faith-based side. There's no "contradicting evidence" to the assertion of a heaven (or hell) for instance -- while I believe it's a specious assertion and don't believe in it myself, that doesn't mean that people who do believe in it are "ignoring contradicting evidence". There's no information on it one way or the other.

Well, I think it means for example that if someone says 'this book is without error and someone else says look it's wrong about that then that is ignored. The problem is that theological ideas do change over time and do incorporate the science of their day.

My take: The scientific method is a disciplined approach used to maximize our knowledge of a premise to be able to come as close as possible to objective truth as we are able. It requires certain distinct milestones such as predictive value, concrete evidence, demonstrability, repeatablility, falsification, corroboration, and review by others. You cannot edit out any of these from the scientific method and maintain the scientific method itself.

So if one of these is missing in any instance then the theory proposed is not a scientific theory. That would exclude a lot of cosmology, some parts of evolutionary theory and a host of others that most people would think of science. It would also exclude a lot of people regarded as major scientists - Einstein, Galileo, Darwin, Mach, Heisenberg, Rutherford - in fact hardly any scientists have used all these methods on any one theory.

If you're going to compare it to faith-based approaches, other than a sort of casual "review" by others, I don't believe that faith-based methodology embraces any of those criteria that exists oin the scientific method.

Well I don't think there is a faith based method, that was just someone's joke.

And just to jump several posts and add a note on Rian and gary's current spat. The argument about evolution, and geology, and historical theories in science began back in the nineteenth century. Prior to that people had been arguing that science was purely inductive and Newton for example had said he did not do hypotheses but simply induced his theories by generalising from observations (the sense in which he did and did not think he was using hypotheses is complex and it gets more so because he was assuming things like absolute space without realising it was a hypothetical assumption - and it is not quite the case that he was just assuming what everyone always thought because there are several ancient writers who do not do hold to the idea of absolute space - most of the Church Fathers for example) When sciences like geology came along then people objected that this was not true science because it did not use the proper scientific method; this is a big part of Wiberforce's argument and Huxley conceded many of his points (in letters not on the night). A lot of the early arguments against Darwin are of this kind rather than being theological arguments. However many creationists have adopted this old model of the scientific method. I think Rian is right that popular controversy has lead people to try and formulate their theories about the scientific method more clearly but I think this goes back before the evolution wars she is talking about and this older argument which really was about method and changes perceptions of the scientific method got dragged into those arguments.

[mitchellmckain]

The scientific method explained in this diagram is not quite correct and this so called "faith based methodology" is a pure invention of rhetoric and complete bosh.

Mitch, I'm curious about why you say this. Can you elaborate on what is so incorrect about this diagram? IOW, how is faith different than the diagram?

There IS NO faith based methodology. Modern science is defined by a methodology but religion is not.

As for faith, it is my assertion that all knowledge is based on faith. Proof and evidence is not very forthcomming for most things and even when there is such, drawing conclusions from these requires all kinds of premises and assumptions. We have proofs in mathematics but one of them is a proof that it is impossible to prove that mathematics itself is consistent. Thus we have to assume that mathematics is consistent even for the things proven in mathematics to be meaningful. It is often Moonwood contention and I agree with him that the methodology of science is not a product of itself and thus all scientific knowledge must rest on a faith in that methodology. Sure you can say that these prove themselve by what they accomplish but that is exactly the same argument that the religious use for their beliefs also. There is one difference and one difference only and that is found in this distinction between the objective and the subjective. But any attempt to draw other conclusions from this distinction has no objective validity itself.

As for the science diagram I have already explained some of the problems with it and I shall continue to explain more of them in this thread.

Furthermore an explanation of science is incomplete without an understanding of the driving force of it for that is an important part of what pushes its work in directions with a certain kind of utility. It is because of this last aspect of science that it is not quite correct to say that science is simply an purely about finding the truth about things. That is not to say that such a motivation plays no role in the methodology because it does in some rather admirable ways.

So far I disagree with this conclusion, Mitch, but I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Could you elaborate? The reason I challenge you on this is because there can be numerous driving forces behind work in science, anything from necessity to pure curiosity. However, the quality of the answers have no allegiance to the idea. IOW, each idea, no matter where is came from or why, deserves an answer that is both accurate and reliable and the SM is a very good tool for providing such an answer. It doesn't change how the method works because the driving force is different, at least in my way of thinking. I'm curious to know why you say it does.

The utility I am talking about is what provides the means for further scientific investigation. Claims which provide no avenues for further research just get ignored as practically meaningless to the scientific community. The driving forces that I am talking about are graduate students working for a PHD and professors trying to publish. Here is the economic connection for those who like to see money as a theory for everything that human beings do. Thus professors and graduate students need avenues of research to pursue and thus things which don't help them in this have far far less interest to the scientific community than things that do. Sometimes things are "rediscovered" when connections are made so that a discovery that was previously ignored as meaningless now provides a fruitful avenue of research. An example is the work of Kaluza and Klein. Kaluza showed that when you add another dimension to Einsteins field equations you get Maxwell's equations for electrodynamics out of it. Klein answered objections that no such extra dimensions are observable by arguing that the extra dimension could be very small. This work was ignored as a meaningless curiousity until work in quantum field theory showed that extra dimensions could be the way of getting rid of singularities (inconvenient infinities) and thus opened up all this theoretical physics work on unified field theories like string theory.

[Rian]

And just to jump several posts and add a note on Rian and gary's current spat.

I don't think it's a spat Do you, Gary? I thought it was a very well-conducted discussion on differences. I don't see anything spatty in either of our posts. Gary and I had a really strange start when he first joined the board, but we worked it out well and I think we get along fine. I have a lot of respect for Gary and his posts, and I enjoy talking with him because we have a lot of differences yet we have the same standard of respect, and I think he has a regard for truth wherever it leads you, as do I. I hope he feels that way about me. I think he did jump the gun a bit on my post and make some assumptions that weren't there, but I pointed it out, as I hope he would point it out to me if I did it, and I think he'll be fine with it.

Truth is one of the most important values in my life; my husband says I am truthful to a fault, even - even if it hurts my case in our disputes, he knows I'll be truthful. What I value most is love, but truth is a close second.