List of scientific method topics

Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on observable, empirical, measurable evidence, and subject to laws of reasoning, both deductive and inductive. Topics on scientific method include:

Nature of scientific method

*Science
*Philosophy of science
*Sociology of knowledge
*Process
*Knowledge

Elements of scientific method

* Laboratory
* Laboratory techniques

Observation

*Methods
*Causation
*Investigation
*Measurement
*Solar time vs Sidereal time
*Mass vs Weight

Hypothesis

Use Occam's razor to prune the list of hypothetical explanations of the observation.
*pro:Karl Popper Falsifiability
*con:Paul Feyerabend
*Statistical hypothesis testing

Prediction

A prediction is a logical inference from the hypothesis — Bayesian inference is subjective use of statistical reasoning — Deductive reasoning — Retrodiction

Experiment

Feynman: "We can do anything we want (in theorizing). Then all we have to do is check with the experiment."
* Design of experiments
* Scientific control
* Natural experiment
* Observational study
* Field experiment
* Self-experimentation
** Self-experimentation in medicine
* Placebo effect

Evaluation

Test of the inference: prediction and experimentation to establish new facts. Critical examination of the hypothetical explanation:
*Peer review by community of scholars, using logic, etc. The wave–particle duality overturned by photoelectric effect.
*Peer review unused for cold fusion also the Analysis of the Experiment.
*Medical peer review

History of scientific method

: "Main articles: History of scientific method, Timeline of the history of scientific method, and History of science"

Publications

*Ibn al-Haytham's "Book of Optics"
*Avicenna's "The Canon of Medicine"
*Roger Bacon's "Opus Majus"
*Francis Bacon's "Novum Organum"

What made the scientific method succeed?

* Political factors
* Economic factors
* Other factors
** Rediscovery of ancient Greek, Arabic and other texts by Europeans during the medieval Latin translation movement
** Invention of the printing press facilitated knowledge sharing
** Protection of the community of scientists who fostered the discoveries
*** The reformation, seizure of the orders led to secular communities of scholars
*** Britain was an island nation
*** American Revolution, which challenged the existing social order (absolutist monarchies, divine right of kings)

Why didn't the scientific method arise elsewhere?

* China
* Greece
* India
* Korean Peninsula
* Malay Archipelago
* Mesoamerica
* Sub-Saharan Africa

Scientific method concepts

Empirical methods

* Empiricism
* Robert Grosseteste
* Peter Parker
* Francis Magalona
* Bitoy's method
* Empirical validation
* Operationalization

Paradigm change

* Paradigm, the most unpopular word in English.
* Thomas Samuel Kuhn started a new paradigm by telling us about paradigms.
* The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is Kuhn's book.
* Paradigm shift.

Problem of induction

The problem of induction questions the logical basis of scientific statements.
* Inductive reasoning appears to lie at the core of scientific method, yet also appears to be invalid.
* David Hume was the person who first pointed out the problem of induction.
* Karl Popper offered one solution, Falsifiability

Scientific creativity

* Linus Pauling "How do I do it? I have a lot of ideas, and throw out the bad ones".
* Isaac Newton's moon and apple.
* Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz's benzene-ring.
* Michael Polanyi
* Tacit knowledge

When method goes wrong

* Bad science
* Junk science
* Pseudoscience
* Pathological science

Critique of scientific method

* Paul Feyerabend argued that the search for a definitive scientific method was misplaced, and even counterproductive.
* Imre Lakatos attempted to bridge the gap between Popper and Kuhn.
* Sociology of scientific knowledge
* Scientism

Use of statistics

* "Uncomfortable science", due to statistician John Tukey: Inference from a limited sample of data, where further samples influenced by the same causality, a finite natural phenomenon for which it is difficult to overcome the problem of using a common sample of data for both exploratory data analysis and confirmatory data analysis. Statistical bias through testing hypotheses suggested by the data. Prediction interval.

Relationship of scientific method to technology

Technology is subordinate to Science; Scientific discovery rests on technology.

Science and technology studies
*Theories of technology

Departures from method

Michael Polanyi elegant Occam's razor.

Geocentric model Nicolaus Copernicus Tycho Brahe Kepler Isaac Newton Galileo

Scientific method scholars

German astronomer who discovered three major laws of planetary motion, conventionally designated as follows: (1) the planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus; (2) the time necessary to traverse any arc of a planetary orbit is proportional to the area of the sector between the central body and that arc (the “area law”); and (3) there is an exact relationship between the squares of the planets' periodic times and the cubes of the radii of their orbits (the “harmonic law”). Kepler himself did not call these discoveries “laws,” as would become customary after Isaac Newton derived them from a new and quite different set of general physical principles. He regarded them as celestial harmonies that reflected God's design for the universe. Kepler's discoveries turned Nicolaus Copernicus's Sun-centred system into a dynamic universe, with the Sun actively pushing the planets around in noncircular orbits. And it was Kepler's notion of a physical astronomy that fixed a new problematic for other important 17th-century world-system builders, the most famous of whom was Newton.

See also

* Bayesian probability -- Quasi-empirical methods -- Foundation ontology -- Ontology -- Philosophy of mathematics -- mathematics --

Epistemology
* Post-processual archaeology is a methodological curiosity from Archaeology.
* Structuralism -- post-structuralism -- deconstruction-- postmodernism -- Latour, Bruno -- Secularism --

physical law -- Science policy -- Scientific Revolution -- Sociology of knowledge -- Science studies -- Conflicting theories