Scientific method  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Diagram of the human mind, from Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, page 217[1] by Robert Fludd

Related e

Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries). It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all scientific enterprises.

History

Important debates in the history of science concern skepticism that anything can be known for sure (such as views of Francisco Sanches), rationalism (especially as advocated by René Descartes), inductivism, empiricism (as argued for by Francis Bacon, then rising to particular prominence with Isaac Newton and his followers), and hypothetico-deductivism, which came to the fore in the early 19th century.

The term "scientific method" emerged in the 19th century, when a significant institutional development of science was taking place and terminologies establishing clear boundaries between science and non-science, such as "scientist" and "pseudoscience", appeared. Throughout the 1830s and 1850s, at which time Baconianism was popular, naturalists like William Whewell, John Herschel, John Stuart Mill engaged in debates over "induction" and "facts" and were focused on how to generate knowledge. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a debate over realism vs. antirealism was conducted as powerful scientific theories extended beyond the realm of the observable.

See also

• Armchair theorizing
• Contingency
• Empirical limits in science
• Evidence-based practices
• Fuzzy logic
• Information theory
• Logic
  • Historical method
  • Philosophical methodology
  • Scholarly method
• Methodology
• Metascience
• Operationalization
• Quantitative research
• Rhetoric of science
• Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism
• Scientific law
• Social research
• Strong inference
• Testability
• Unsupervised learning
• Verificationism

Problems and issues

• Descriptive science
• Design science
• Holism in science
• Junk science
• List of cognitive biases
• Normative science
• Philosophical skepticism
• Poverty of the stimulus
• Problem of induction
• Pseudoscience
• Reference class problem
• Replication crisis
• Skeptical hypotheses
• Underdetermination

History, philosophy, sociology

• Timeline of the history of scientific method
• Baconian method
• Epistemology
• Epistemic truth
• Mertonian norms
• Normal science
• Post-normal science
• Science studies
• Sociology of scientific knowledge