Talk:Scientific method/Archive 22

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Aristotle

The article cites Galileo's sloppy scholarship to support the myth that Aristotle did not follow the scientific method. This myth has been debunked since at least 1914, when J. F. Hardcastle published a letter pointing out that Aristotle was discussing the terminal velocity of bodies falling in viscous media, not in a vacuum. Still, the slander continues to be repeated in respectable, but ill-informed, sources. The same point was made again in 1947 by Alvarro-Alberto, and in a Nature news item .Dfpolis (talk) 13:53, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

See Two New Sciences, Crew & de Salvio's translation, 'Salviati speaks:'

I greatly doubt that Aristotle ever tested by experiment whether it be true that two stones, one weighing ten times as much as the other, if allowed to fall, at the same instant, from a height of, say, 100 cubits, would so differ in speed that when the heavier had reached the ground, the other would not have fallen more than 10 cubits.

Simp: His language would seem to indicate that he had tried the experiment, because he says: We see the heavier; now the word see shows that he had made the experiment.

Sagr.: But I, Simplicio, who have made the test can assure[107] you that a cannon ball weighing one or two hundred pounds, or even more, will not reach the ground by as much as a span ahead of a musket ball weighing only half a pound, provided both are dropped from a height of 200 cubits.

Salv.: But, even without further experiment, it is possible to prove clearly, by means of a short and conclusive argument, that a heavier body does not move more rapidly than a lighter one provided both bodies are of the same material and in short such as those mentioned by Aristotle. But tell me, Simplicio, whether you admit that each falling body acquires a definite [63] speed fixed by nature, a velocity which cannot be increased or diminished except by the use of force [violenza] or resistance. etc.

Next follows a thought experiment showing a contradiction in Aristotle's mooted law. So Aristotle's mooted hypothetical fails both experiment and logic. The alternative explanation is that Aristotle never did the experiment. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 20:31, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

References

Muslim scholar

There's 3 boxes on the right referring to 3 important characters in history. In none of them the religious beliefs of the characters is stated except in the case of one of "Ibn al-Haytham ... The Muslim scholar who ...".

It should be removed because it is irrelevant and inconsistent with the rest of the article or the religion of the remaining characters must be added.

As it is now, it looks like mostly all of the science characters are of another religion (christianity?), so much so that any character of another religion needs to be noted especially; or it looks like his religion deserves special mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.227.23.87 (talk) 23:34, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

 Done --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 10:47, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Grosseteste paragraph

While addressing some citation error messages for Dales and for Clegg, in the Grosseteste paragraph I noticed that the (A.C. Crombie 1962, p.15) reference is to a 1962 printing of the 1953 edition. There is a 1971 printing as well. It appears that the Crombie reference could just as well cite (Crombie 1953, 15) in the Harvard citation style. But I don't want to change the Grosseteste paragraph from Harvard style to Wikipedia citation style until one of us can verify that a Crombie 1953 p.15 would be accurate, assuming that the thesis is correct.

A more pertinent question is the thesis: A.C Crombie claimed that Grosseteste had discovered the principle of experiment; this is manifestly untrue, as Aristotle, before him, was a superb naturalist, while Ptolemy described a visual perception experiment, 900 years before Alhacen's vast expansion of the uses for Ptolemy's experiment. (Grosseteste lived two centuries after Alhacen.) A.Mark Smith counts Grosseteste, not as an experimentalist, but as a theoretician who heavily influenced the Perspectivists Roger Bacon, Witelo, and John Peckham. From our perspective, Grosseteste brought the heavens down to earth, by secularizing astronomy. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 14:52, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

It's been a long time since I read Crombie on Grosseteste but I found this underlined passage on the first page of my copy: "Modern science owes most of its success to the use of these inductive and experimental procedures, constituting what is often called 'the experimental method'. The thesis of this book is tnat the modern, systematic understanding of at least the qualitative aspects of this method was created by the philosophers of the West in the thirteenth century. It was they who transformed the Greek geometrical method into the experimental science of the modern world." (p. 1).

Personally, I think Crombie overstates the case for the influence of Grosseteste and his contemporaries on the development of experimental science, but he does make the claim. Crombie's focus draws extensively on Grosseteste's commentaries on Aristotle's logical works, implying that formal analyses of inductive logic were a prerequisite for the practice of experimental science. As to Grosseteste's sources, his discussions of Aristotle drew, on the writings of Boethius, Galen, Avicenna, Alkindi, and numerous later commentators on them. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 04:32, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Turning to your specific question about the p. 15 passage, it also appears in my copy of the 1971 edition; judging from the introductions' descriptions of the minor changes between editions, I imagine it also appeared in the 1953 edition.

Incidentally, Crombie himself noted in the introduction to the 1963 reprinting that his earlier discussion gave too much credit to Grosseteste's commentaries on the Posterior Analytics on the development of science and "some of the expressions I used about the extent of the medieval contributions to the structure and methods of research of modern experimental science now seem to me exaggerated." (p. v). --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 04:56, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

@SteveMcCluskey, thank you for verifying the Crombie citation. It's all one citation style now. We can revisit the style after the Crombie thesis is reexamined. To recap, it is possible to scale down Crombie's claim: the Grosseteste commentary, (review via JSTOR) p.835 shows how Grosseteste gave theoretical guidance about the nature of light: the light beyond the moon has to be the same as the light here on earth (my paraphrase of the sentence in Alexander Murray's review, p.835, of James McEvoy (1982) The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste, which is "If it were to be 'the first form of corporeity', light had to be the same both above and below the moon." ).

This guidance is concrete enough for his followers to start doing physics. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 14:14, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Relationship with statistics

I propose to add the above heading below the "Relationship with mathematics" section, together with the following text. Please feel free to amend and improve.AppliedStatistics (talk) 20:54, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

The scientific method has been extremely successful in bringing the world out of medieval times, especially once it was combined with industrial processes. However, when the scientific method employs statistics as part of its arsenal, there are a number of both mathematical and practical issues that can have a deleterious effect on the reliability of the output of the scientific methods. This is outlined in detail in the most downloaded 2005 scientific paper "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" ever by John Ioannidis. The particular points raised are statistical:

"* The smaller the studies conducted in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true.

• The greater the flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true."

and economical:

"* The greater the financial and other interests and prejudices in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true.

• The hotter a scientific field (with more scientific teams involved), the less likely the research findings are to be true."

Hence: "Most research findings are False for most research designs and for most fields"

and "As shown, the majority of modern biomedical research is operating in areas with very low pre- and poststudy probability for true findings." AppliedStatistics (talk) 21:10, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Quoting from the last paragraph of Ioannidis: "Nevertheless, most new discoveries will continue to stem from hypothesis-generating research with low or very low pre-study odds." --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:30, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

This is an excellent point. How about adding the following at the bottom of this section:

However: "Nevertheless, most new discoveries will continue to stem from hypothesis-generating research with low or very low pre-study odds." which means that *new* discoveries will come from research that, when that research started, had low or very low odds (a low or very low chance) of succeeding. Hence, if the scientific method is used to expand the frontiers of knowledge, research into areas that are outside the mainstream will yield most new discoveries. AppliedStatistics (talk) 21:10, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

References

Merging Process (science)

Merging could well be a good idea as the 'Process (science)' article is only a stub and there is no series of WP articles on processes, therefore there is no context. Merge but have an open mind. AppliedStatistics (talk) 06:00, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose merging. As it stands this article is already poorly focussed, discussing a wide range of topics related to how science is, has been, or should be practiced. Adding Process (science) to it would further muddy the issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveMcCluskey (talk • contribs) 01:22, 25 January 2016‎

An hypothesis

I reverted an edit that turned "an hypothesis" into "a hypothesis". This was done on the basis that "("An" is used for words which are pronounced with an initial vowel, thus "a history" vs. "an honor", "A hypothesis" is correct, not "An...")". Although this rule is generally true, for some h words, including hypothesis and hotel, the an variant is often used. See these Google searches [2]; [3]. This search shows how often it is used in Wikipedia [4] Myrvin (talk) 16:15, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Reverted another change to 'a' that had the comment: "Correct based on a minority use, about 25% in British English, but both the rules of std North Am. Eng and 94% of users prefer "an"." I wonder where these 'rules' and stats are stated. Also, the comment seems to argue for 'an', because 94% of users prefer it. Myrvin (talk) 15:37, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I have opened a request for comments on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. Myrvin (talk) 15:51, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I posted at the thread above but I'll put the short version here. "an hypothesis" is at best tolerated, while "a hypothesis" is far more common. The 'h' is always pronounced, I cannot find a single dictionary where an h-less pronunciation is even listed as an alternate. Why fight for this? Just use the form that is most common, normal, and expected. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:27, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

• Additional evidence that 'a hypothesis' should be the preferred form on WP: "an hypothesis" occurs in 45k academic papers published 2000-2015 (google scholar [5]), while "a hypothesis" occurs in 749k articles [6]. So this much is clear: In modern academic publishing, "a hypothesis" is preferred to "an hypothesis" by a factor of about 16 to 1. Why go against the standards that the academic publishing world uses? Just use "a hypothesis", it's the most correct thing to do. I will probably eventually (giving some time to the ref desk thread) change the article to "a hypothesis on these grounds. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:55, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I just did this Google NGRAM search to trace the historical development of this usage in both British and American English. It shows that since 1934 "a hypothesis" has surpassed "an hypothesis" in both dialects. There seems to be no contest here.

As a side note, "a hypothesis" took the lead in British English in 1907 but didn't take the lead in American English until 1934. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 00:52, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, please get rid of "an hypothesis", which is ludicrous. 110.143.242.138 (talk) 14:02, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

As we, the editors, have performed the due bikeshedding over the past several years ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, I plan to shift the article to 'a hypothesis' within one week. OK, Arc? --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 14:59, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Sunrise (talk) 21:43, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

A hypothesis is a conjecture, ...

The wording is a bit misleading to people not acquainted to the subject. Maybe a better wording would be: A hypothesis is based on a conjecture, ... 86.26.67.50 (talk) 02:55, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Reason for deletion of "...documentation, archiving and sharing of all data collected or produced and of the methodologies used..." on 21:33, 22 November 2014

I'm looking for information on why the following section was deleted & replaced from this page. It was originally the third paragraph from the top. The most recent edit I can find that removed/replaced the text by Historian7 at 16:33, 22 November 2014. Before then, it was:

Scientific inquiry is intended to be as objective as possible in order to minimize bias. Another basic expectation is the documentation, archiving and sharing of all data collected or produced and of the methodologies used so they may be available for careful scrutiny and attempts by other scientists to reproduce and verify them. This practice, known as full disclosure, also means that statistical measures of their reliability may be made. - link to diff between 633756671 and 635013401 showing deletion

I have skimmed through the discussion archive but haven't found a conclusive explanation.

I am asking because that specific section was quoted in a scientific article and attributed to this page (but not with a permalink, shame on them). I personally thought it was a reasonable part of the definition Scientific Method.

If scientists publish a section of a wikipedia article and use it as part of the definition of the subject being discussed in their scholarly work, as they have here, and then that content is deleted from wikipedia, is it reasonable to restore it, if not literally, then in spirit? Kinda circular.

mac (talk) 21:12, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I found a citation at the editorial level which might be used to back up the deleted text, so it might be restored in spirit. New wording would be welcome, of course. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 22:13, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The onus is surely on the scientists or publishers to provide a permanent link to the page in question at the time they accessed it – that would be part of their obligation to archive the data they used. . . dave souza, talk 23:14, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I think there is a significant difference between the scientific method, and current best practices. In particular, sharing of all data produced has only become practical with modern computer systems and the internet. It's not a defining feature of the scientific method. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:04, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Fully agree with Stephan Schulz. Unsurprisingly, there has been a shifting set of standards which has become a political issue, for example in the Wegman Report#Sharing of data and methods issue which related to National Science Foundation standards. Other national bodies will presumably have codes or standards, and individual journals set their standards which have been toughtned up at times in light of controversy and of changes in storage and distribution of data and methodology. So, current sources should be found. . . dave souza, talk 23:14, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Bear in mind that this has echoes in the global warming wars. I'm pretty sure I've removed similar text myself. Over at Scientific data archiving I can find a "purer" example. As Stephan and Dave have said, best practice has changed, comparatively recently William M. Connolley (talk) 23:42, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

References

Situational awareness in a scientific investigation

Currently, the article opens with (emphasis mine):

The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, 'acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[2]

What happens to this newly acquired knowledge? How is it integrated with or used to correct previous knowledge? The four introductory paragraphs following the first sentence sentence provide an overview of how new knowledge is generated with scientific method, but don't address the second part of the first sentence, how the new knowledge is integrated with previous knowledge. I believe some discussion of the practice of both publishing and consuming scientific knowledge is therefore warranted here. I don't have primary sources at hand to help with this, but from a common-sense perspective, hypotheses for experiments designed to produce new knowledge are predicated on antecedent empirical knowledge and theories. Otherwise, the scientific method would always involve the (re)discovery of empirical knowledge from first principles. Or is there another article that contextualizes the scientific method within the broader enterprise of discovering and using scientific knowledge - mac (talk) 08:56, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@mac, see Scientific_method#Overview for a narrative description of the process. Your specific point about correcting and integrating previous knowledge, is the "ask a question" stage of the narrative. The new knowledge need not be a discrete 'thing'; what is new could be a new way of looking at things. For example, in the DNA story, Francis Crick was specifically interested in the physical arrangement of the genetic material. That was his question. Please respond to this reply so that we can zero-in on your specific point. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 10:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@mac, it occurred to me that another way to approach your contribution would be to relate it to an investigator's research interest and his/her Situational awareness of the state of the scientific investigation. By state I mean the progress toward answering the specific question of the moment. For example, Tea time, Friday 30 January 1953, King's College London: Rosalind Franklin has emphatically rejected Watson & Crick's hypothesis that DNA is a helix; Watson beats a hasty retreat; Wilkins commiserates with Watson and shows him photo 51. Watson's jaw drops and his pulse races upon the evidence that DNA is indeed a helix. It took a lifetime of training and preparation to be ready for that specific situation. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 19:16, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Very good article

I just wanted to offer kudos to all of you who have contributed to this article as I found it to be quite well-written, informative, and nicely referenced. Of course, there is always room for improvement, but we sometimes become so focused on an article's imperfections that we can lose sight of the fact that it's a damn good article. ;O) - Mark D Worthen PsyD 12:07, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Unverified quote from OED in Lede

Issue resolved: The impatient can see Summary below

There's been a definition of the scientific method in the lede since this edit of 2011. There has been a question about the source since this edit of 2014. I recently checked the Online version of the OED (which can be considered the current version) and did not find the quotation in the entries for "Scientific" (as cited in the lede) or "Scientific method". In view of this failed verification I recommend this section of the lede be rewritten (perhaps with a quotation from the current version of the OED). --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:14, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I zeroed in on a citation for the 'systematic observation' phrase in the lede, but I don't have access to OED, so I searched JSTOR and SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). SEP's article, by Hansson, Sven Ove, "Science and Pseudo-Science", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/pseudo-science/>, gives a minimal (necessary but not sufficient) criterion of science: "Science is a systematic search for knowledge whose validity does not depend on the particular individual but is open for anyone to check or rediscover."

The old quote attributed to the OED defined scientific method as "a method or procedure that has characterised natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."

The current version of the online OED has the following, lengthy, definition:

"A method of observation or procedure based on scientific ideas or methods; spec. an empirical method that has underlain the development of natural science since the 17th cent.

"It is now commonly represented as ideally comprising some or all of (a) systematic observation, measurement, and experimentation, (b) induction and the formulation of hypotheses, (c) the making of deductions from the hypotheses, (d) the experimental testing of the deductions, and (if necessary) (e) the modification of the hypotheses; though there are great differences in practice in the way the scientific method is employed in different disciplines (e.g. palaeontology relies on induction more than does chemistry, because past events cannot be repeated experimentally). The modern scientific method is often seen as deriving ultimately from Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620) and the work of Descartes. In the 20th cent. Karl Popper's idea of empirical falsification has been important (cf. Popperian adj.)."

The OED "scientific method" entry seems to focus more on what I'm used to as a discussion of scientific method, while the discussion of "science and pseudo-science" entry cited above from the SEP seems to focus more on science as a public social activity. In my view, the OED provides a better basis for our discussion of scientific method. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:25, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

After comparing the two OED definitions above, I wonder if the problem is the improper use of quotation marks for what looks like a condensation of the current OED definition. In that case, a simple solution would be to remove the quotation marks and expand the footnote to give a precise reference and a quotation of the portion of the definition from "A method…" to "…modification of the hypotheses"

Any thoughts on that proposed edit? --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:02, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Eureka! Further digging through the Oxford Dictionaries web pages found a link to the definition at the Oxford Dictionaries Online website. It doesn't have quite the detail of the OED, has ads, but isn't behind a paywall. I've corrected the reference to the quotation in the lede. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:01, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the find.

Summary

The talk section above boils down to a verified citation for a short definition of scientific method which was previously misattributed to OED. See the article's illustration of the process ("The Scientific Method as an Ongoing Process" —by Theodore Garland), to the right of the now-verified definition. The illustration begins with the red arrow, continuing through the spectrum: orange, yellow, green, and cyan (pale blue), until the cycle tightens into a smaller cycle, blue and purple, tighter and more precise, until newer, looser, or more general considerations appear, in red again, in an unending process. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:39, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Mosers' "systematic method'

It should be noted that the Mosers' discovery of grid cells by systematic methods was recognized in the 2014 Nobel prize for physiology. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:08, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm a bit puzled by the comment about the Moser group's work. I searched their principal web pages and their Nobel Prize lectures and could not find the words "method" or "systematic". From this quick look, I don't see how their work would address the nature of scientific method. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:42, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

May-Britt Moser mentioned that neither she nor her husband had any eureka insight into their discovery when they started their study, which was from the ground up. They learned their skills and the subject from their professors, and simply investigated their subject systematically, on their own terms. Feynman mentioned the same phenomenon, with the MIT cyclotron, which was an ad-hoc affair, so he learned the subject hands-on (as opposed to the Princeton cyclotron). I will try to find the quote from May-Britt Moser which stated they had no special knowledge in the beginning, possessed only of the attitude that they really wanted to tackle the subject. (The same for Feynman's attitude, who was ambitious in the same way.) That doesn't explain Einstein's success (where he began with what Whewell called a 'happy thought'-- not exactly a eureka moment, amounting to a transformation of coordinates, using a ride in a railroad car. I suppose that it takes a trained observer to recognize that one is being accelerated in a railcar, or in an elevator.). But scientific method specifically allows the emergence of such moments of observation. The problem is, the existence of such happy moments isn't by the scientific method, other than the custom of letting your mind run free. Feynman alluded to this as well, when he said that when you aren't in the university, then you have time to think! (Note: I can still hear the indignation in his voice. I allude to Feynman a lot because I was a student in some of his lectures.)

From Edvard Moser "There is, no way around working hard." Still, over the years "you do learn to be more efficient and focus on the [really] important things.... When you really have discovered something, and not just done something, and you can say ‘Ah, now I know how it works.' These moments are the driving factor." -- Anne Forde , 10:00 AM "The biology of memory" Science (Nov. 4, 2005)

--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 06:19, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Why does Scientific pluralism redirect here

Question in section title. There doesn't seem to be much of a treatment of the topic on this page Porphyro (talk) 11:18, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the heads-up. I was looking for Polanyi's Republic of Science. In the meantime I put in Michael Polanyi#All knowing is personal. Or maybe Tacit Dimension. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 21:48, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

In the latest series of edits, the series argues that Smolin is using rhetoric of science to focus our attention on the scientific enterprise itself. Smolin himself argues that for the enterprise "to progress as fast as possible", a scientific community "encourage(s) competition and diversification". --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 08:55, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

@User:Asterixf2: Lee Smolin, as cited above, states: "Here I have to emphasize I’m not saying that anything goes." He disclaims Feyerabend's witticism, and states there is no single method, not that there is no method, per Feyerabend. The title of his piece was a rhetorical device to get our attention. Rather, Smolin emphasizes that scientists uphold common ethical principles of behavior, in pluralistic, not unitary fashion. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 05:22, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 October 2016

The null hypothesis is looked at once data is collected and depending on the data the hypothesis is either accepted or rejected. BrandiKnapp21 (talk)Brandi BrandiKnapp21 (talk) 22:17, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Mz7 (talk) 20:48, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 1 November 2016

I want to talk about how you reject or accept a null hypothesis after there's enough evidence on the research a person's doing. BrandiKnapp21 (talk)Brandi

BrandiKnapp21 (talk) 15:42, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

 Not done That is not a semi-protected edit request which is for specific requests for changes to the article. - Please talk about it on this page, by starting the discussion. - Arjayay (talk) 19:36, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 November 2016

It is important to design a experiment so that a hypothesis can be tested. The most important part of the scientific method is the experiment.

References

BrandiKnapp21 (talk) 00:46, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Toggling for now. Where would you like this statement placed? — Andy W. (talk) 01:05, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

At the end of the first paragraph BrandiKnapp21 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:04, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

History section

Hi guys, the article has a very long (in my view WP:UNDUE, at some 1750 words) 'History' section which both overlaps and contradicts the subsidiary article History of scientific method. The section was flagged many months ago by another editor as problematic. The section already has a main link to the subsidiary article.

The usual and justifiable arrangement in this situation is to replace the section with a brief summary of the other article, so that readers who want a quick read can find it here, while those who want the full story can click on the main link.

I'd suggest using the lead from the subsidiary article as the basis for a summary, but if anyone has a better suggestion I'd be happy to go with that.

I'd be grateful if we could agree this or a similar way ahead. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:55, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I would support this idea if we were also to rewrite the summary in history of scientific method. In that summary, we ought to include the passages on skepticism and materialism, which date back even to Carvaka (600 BCE). Basically we need to highlight the rejection of inference, ala Epicurus, and the rise of empiricism, (ala the biology in Aristotle's and Theophrastus' studies in the Lagoon). These findings hold to this day. The debates seem to be centered on the all-too-human search for certainty, which skeptics relinquished long ago. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:09, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll try to do that, and will be glad of your help in polishing it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the contribution. I will try to add in more Epicurus - d.270 BCE (I have access to JSTOR), skepticism (ala Francisco Sanches - d.1623), and bridge to the enormous work of C. S. Peirce -d.1914. Hopefully others will add to the ongoing efforts. This should be fun. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:28, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

A short summary, eh? I guess whatever there is needs to be mirrored between the lead of the main article and the summary section here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:08, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Then perhaps the first paragraph suffices, for the rest of the history summary. You might simply truncate the rest of the section, in favor of the subsidiary article ... OK? That would clear the decks for the projected 3-4 paragraphs. In that case, we would still need statements about scientific standards and techniques behind a scientific community. Ludwik Fleck (1935) Genesis and development of a Scientific Fact is such a framework. It explains how a scientific community constructs its facts. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 09:24, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I already removed the rest of the section, so I'm not following your meaning. Feel free to add a bit from Fleck if you're sure that's sufficiently up to date, much has changed in phil. of sci. in 80 years. I'd suggest that newer sources would be needed at least as a corrective; most should already be in the main article, and should be added there if not. The 3-4 paras of the main article's lead will then be based on the citations in that article; of course the citations will need to be extracted and copied into the brief summary in this article here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:57, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. That puts my focus on the history of scientific method article, to see how Fleck is depicted there. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 10:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Improvement suggestion

1. There is something vary much lacking in this chapter. Namely, that science is like a building that is build brick by brick; meaning that scientific method must include a continuous checking on how a theory (even if the particular theory is self-consistent) fits to well-established theories and experimental data.
2. The description of the general relativity (GR) example is false; in essence GR's prediction is that spacetime is bent, not light. The banding of light is only a consequence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.63.161.109 (talk) 07:24, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

176.63.161.109: You'll need to be more specific about what changes you think are warranted. I agree that there's something a bit off about the simplified GR explanation, but I'm not sure how best to remedy it.  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:47, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

The Law of Noncontradiction and the principle of Consilience are firm foundations

Aristotle’s law of noncontradiction and the principle of consilience are firmly at the foundation of scientific methods. Whenever a contradiction is uncovered, scientists jump into the gap and investigate thoroughly until the contradiction can be understood and resolved. Examining inconsistency can bring us to the threshold of insight and new understanding. One manifestation of this is the role played by the principle of consilience—the unity of knowledge. There is an expectation (assumption?) that accurate investigations will result in broadly compatible results. An example of this is response to the Faster-than-light neutrino anomaly. Scientists worked diligently to resolve the contractions between the experimental results and the prevailing theories. The precession of mercury is another good example. Perhaps the law of noncontradiction and the principle of consilience can be more prominently addressed in the article. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (talk) 13:10, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

The influence of Aristotle even extends to the current footnote [2] -- Goldhaber, Alfred Scharff; Nieto, Michael Martin (January–March 2010), "Photon and graviton mass limits", Rev. Mod. Phys., American Physical Society, 82: 939, doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.82.939. pages 939–979. Although Goldhaber & Nieto do not explicitly name consilience, they have a sentence which states its power. I will have to unearth it. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:37, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Skeptical Stance

A key characteristic that differentiates scientific methods from other forms of investigation, is the "skeptical stance"--the viewpoint that the purpose of observation and experiment is to disprove a hypothesis, not to confirm it. This seems to be the essential characteristic that distinguishes valid scientific investigations from demonstrations intended to confirm or defend pseudoscience claims, conspiracy theories, or religious dogma. Science begins with a deep seated doubt that is carefully eroded over time resulting in a justified confidence in those theories that have withstood the rigors of intensive scrutiny. Perhaps the role of doubt can be more prominently addressed in the article. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (talk) 11:36, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we currently have it in History_of_scientific_method#Skepticism_as_a_basis_for_understanding and this article's section on Peirce (see the citation of Peirce, §III–IV in "A Neglected Argument") but your formulation "Science begins with ..." is quite clear. Thank you for your note. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:53, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

While casting about for suitable locations for your contribution, I fell back on WhatIguana's graphic, which distinguishes the stages with multicolored arrows. Using WhatIguana's diagram, you are stating quite clearly that iterations of the inner loop (dark purple to bright purple to blue), repeated until the surviving formulation is strong enough to emerge as red, distinguish this method. Do I understand? --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:28, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

If we are going to accept that a sequence of distinct steps, executed serially, is an accurate representation of scientific methods, then I agree that is where a skeptical stance is most salient. However, I believe a skeptical stance is ubiquitous throughout scientific methods, and is manifest at every step. Taking care to double check measurements, seeking peer review, expecting replication, transparency, collaboration, and assessing the design of each experiment to ensure it will be sufficiently robust to support beneficial conclusions are just a few examples of where a skeptical stance is acted on throughout the processes. --Lbeaumont (talk) 17:15, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

@Lbeaumont: Keep in mind the need for sources, preferably multiple sources if you're going to add a sweeping statement like "a skeptical stance is ubiquitous throughout scientific methods". RockMagnetist(talk) 23:46, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

For those who are skeptical of the skeptical stance, I can offer at least one reference that hints at the role of skepticism: "Science was science because it subjected its theories to rigorous tests which offered a high probability of failing and thus refuting the theory. The aim was not, in this way, to verify a theory." See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method (Section on Popper). I'll continue looking for more direct references. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (talk) 14:25, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Here is another helpful reference: "It is an essential feature of science that it methodically strives for improvement through empirical testing, intellectual criticism, and the exploration of new terrain." See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ I interpret "intellectual criticism" as a skeptical stance, and I'm still looking! --Lbeaumont (talk) 15:52, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

And yet another helpful reference: "for a theory to be scientific, Popper requires (in addition to falsifiability) that energetic attempts are made to put the theory to test and that negative outcomes of the tests are accepted." See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ I interpret "energetic attempts" as a skeptical stance, and I'm still looking! --Lbeaumont (talk) 16:01, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Getting closer with: "The fourth imperative, organized scepticism, implies that science allows detached scrutiny of beliefs that are dearly held by other institutions." See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ Here acknowledgement of the role of skepticism is explicit. --Lbeaumont (talk) 16:51, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Navbox

i decided to create a navbox for scienefic method article, below navboxes are prototye 27/4/2017:

i'm mathematican and don't have enough knowledge in natural sciences, please if you can help me by your informations, the origing navbox is in my sandbox, i think if this navbox be a abstrac of Outline of scientific method may be helpful.

• 1- with process of data to wisdom

• 2-only scientific method

Polonium talk 00:24, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

@ POLONIUM Here is a good link: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Science:_An_Elementary_Teacher%E2%80%99s_Guide/Hypothesis_testing,_data_collection,_analysis,_and_publication I refer you to the graphic there, titled "Scientific Method 3" for a thoughtful review of the steps, by User:WhatIguana. The stages are color-coded.

--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 02:27, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

@POLONIUM: Interesting idea, but the arrows imply that scientific progress occurs in a fixed order. The reality is much messier. Also, the navboxes have a whiff of original research. RockMagnetist(talk) 20:00, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I also have a similar impression about the arrows. —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 20:11, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

@RockMagnetist: Yeah, but as i said i'm mathematican and don't have enough knowledge for completing this navbox, any help for sorting and complete this navbox? i have similare problem with arrows, but this is just a prototype. About relity i spoke with a Phd Student of philosophy of science, he told me there's no basic flowchart for this, completly depends of what you doing, but i think a general navbox may be helpful. Polonium talk 21:23, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for working on this, it does seems promising, but it may indeed be difficult to get right. I'm wondering if instead of arrows, if the information was presented in horizontal layers (with each layer having various related links), if it would be better. The layers would still convey a type of order albeit a less rigid one... What is currently at the left would tend to either be at top or bottom if that idea works. Another aspect is that the spacing may need to be increased, the templates now seems very crowded and condensed (it is possible that the arrows add to the problem, versus spaces or dashes, visually). With more lines and less elements per line, it may look cleaner. —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 23:24, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate and Ancheta Wis:Greate idea, the first form was based on this, and this templates then i decided change it to arrows, but your idea is better. are you think its ready to create a page for it and complete it in time with other members contributions? we can use Template:Under construction for it, for example below:

if you're OK i can change it form in my sandbox then we create a page for it!Polonium talk 00:57, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh I see the relevant use of arrows for those templates you used as examples, they are also shorter, and the symbol they use has no serif, so they do look fine indeed. Editing templates is not my forte yet (I'm a relatively new editor), but sure, a work-in-progress one is a good idea, and it's not impossible that I could help. I'm not sure what you mean by "in time", it may be that you're working as part of a project? I only know of this conversation because this article was on my watchlist. —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 01:44, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I need to caution that a navbox on Certainty conveys the wrong impression for a Science article. The process for Scientific Method is unending, which is the point of User:WhatIguana's graphic. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 02:37, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it's best not to conflate the two. It could also be considered original research, if we're the ones making the comparison without proper sources to justify it. —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 05:26, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

@Ancheta Wis: the name certainy is wrong! i knew it and in my sand box there are alternative names but i mean just scientific method navbox (the second one)Polonium talk 11:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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Thought experiment

It may be helpful to mention the roles of the various types of inquiry in this article on scientific method, including Thought experiment, especially for its role in planning ahead. It can be useful when stating and separating that which is already known from what remains to become known, at any given time before the moment that an actual experiment expends resources and what was previously unknown becomes known. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 19:52, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Lead paragraph

Sorry. I did not notice at first the request to discuss changes to the lead paragraph. The ones I made are basically copy editing and are explained in the History. Thank you. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 19:10, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I am reverting the tag, which documents link rot; but, even a dead link is OK for the encyclopedia. Theodore Garland, a working scientist, produced the citations for the text you tagged. Garland's audience is his students, as scientists-to-be; they learn by doing, and the link is what we cited from years ago. To prove that the spirit of the scientific method is a continual process, I refer to to Isaac Newton's answer when asked what his method for discovering his law of gravitation: "By thinking on it continually." (p. 105, Richard Westfall Never At Rest) --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 19:46, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I finally got the link http://idea.ucr.edu/documents/flash/scientific_method/amplaunch.html# to launch the slide show. I had to install an Android player (Articulate 4.1) on my Chromebook, to play the slide show of 13 slides. So the link worked for me. 02:48, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

1. The scientific method
2. Make observations
3. Think of questions
4. Formulate hypotheses
5. Develop testable predictions
6. Test the predictions
7. Refine, alter, expand, or reject the hypotheses
8. Iterate as warranted
9. Develop general theory
10. The scientific method as an ongoing iterative process
11. In words — The scientific method
12. The slide which is saved to wikimedia commons with 7 colors of arrows
13. The scientific process as applied to Garland's biology course

Here is a review of Nola and Sankey. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 19:54, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Star Trek: Voyager episode

Ancheta Wis moved the reference to the Star trek Voyager Episode to the end of the article. However I think it should remain in the header so that people who search for the Voyager episode see it immediately. Maybe many people don't know they have to enter Scientific Method (Star Trek: Voyager) or Scientific Method (VOY) to get directly to the Voyager episode. --MrBurns (talk) 00:38, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

This has come up before; there is even a hatnote for it. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 09:24, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, I have removed the Trivia section and the Voyager link since these are now in the top-linked disambiguation page. —PaleoNeonate – 14:32, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

One problem

I strongly disagree with the lead in this article. The use of the Oxford Dictionary definition, which makes some very questionable claims, is inappropriate here. Why? Because it is wrong. The Scientific Method (tSM) is, today, recognized as what "Scientists" do. The Scientific Method as described in the lead is a general problem solving method which has been practiced by our species (and others) since the dawn of time. It is simply a formal description of evidence based (methodical trial and error based) problem solving. Scientists have no more claim to it than does a blogger writing about Women's lipsticks trying to gain readership. So, I argue that tSM is used in two different ways. It is usually presented as "what scientists do" but is not, it is simply general problem solving. The Scientific Method, as practiced by scientists has requirements not found in the grade school explanation, given here. It includes in depth study of the previous knowledge of the area of study and peer review. Please note that NEITHER of these requirements (and how about falsifiability?) are to be found in the 7 point diagram to the right of the lead. I also argue that the "real" way scientists "do science" requires a community (peers) and an evidence based body of objective knowledge. It requires attempts to falsify that knowledge as well as any hypothesis being studied, and requires that this "peer review" be objective. (How that actually happens when each one of the community is biased isn't clear.) I'd also argue that what scientists do, depends on the discipline - I don't know of any one comprehensive list which includes all hard sciences (for instance the 5-sigma requirement for publishing in particle physics is not shared with papers in biology). It is also a fact that "science" as practiced in the 17th Century is closer to what we today call "technology", and that "what scientists did" in 1650 C.E. has few similarities to what scientists do at work today. I think the claim that there is some formal system which has existed since the 17th Century and which adequately describes "what all scientists do" is just plain wrong.174.130.70.44 (talk) 21:27, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

@User talk:174.130.70.44, this article is one of the oldest in the encyclopedia; it stabilized after about three to five years of editing by hundreds of editors. The sources included C. S. Peirce, W. S. Jevons, Hans Christian Ørsted, J. S. Mill, Galileo, Giambattista della Porta, Kepler, and Isaac Newton among many others, dating back thousands of years. The article is robust enough to withstand the deletion of a dictionary definition, as the sources we already cite easily cover the dictionary definition. The recognition that our knowledge is subjective and probabilistic is from citations that are centuries old, and that certainty is not to be found here is a thousand years old. But if you are proposing changes, the talk page is the place to start. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 23:31, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd go beyond @User talk:174.130.70.44's comment. Although this article may be one of the oldest in the encyclopedia, it displays the incoherence of having been written by a committee. It lacks structure and organization and has many sections, in which scattered historical examples, e.g. of DNA and the precession of Mercury, are interpreted to make claims about the nature of the scientific method that do not appear to be directly supported by the texts cited, or by secondary historical or philosophical research. In a nutshell, they display many of the hallmarks of original historical research. Fortunately there is a good article on scientific method (apparently a content fork) under History of the scientific method. This article needs a major rewrite, which I don't have time to do. If I were feeling Bold, I'd delete much of it so we could start from scratch, but I'll leave that to someone who's willing to salvage this poorly written article. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 00:13, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

@SteveMcCluskey:, I'm trying to expand the Epicurus section in the history article, based on Elizabeth Asmis' book on his scientific method. I'm trying not to overwhelm readers with Greek or Latin keywords in the process. If you care to supervise, I could touch this article as well. Asmis' work is philological. She relies heavily on Lucretius' On the nature of things among many other sources. I have been heavily influenced by John von Neumann's comment that science made no progress for a thousand years after its definition. Therefore there was advance in methodology before the scientific advances.

On a related note, Voevodsky's NYT obituary alludes to his observations about just what makes mathematicians accept the work of other mathematicians. It's related to their reputations. He was trying to advance proof assistants to help him avoid error in his own work, which went undetected by him and by other mathematicians in the community. This steps on toes because his philosophical choices were definite (constructivism and intuitionism), and omitted other philosophies of mathematics. I personally am not hung up on using only historical method, or only methodological naturalism, or other criteria solely. C.S. Peirce and Jevons were major figures in scientific method, so I think they would survive a rewrite. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 17:51, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Controversial statement?

Currently the article says "Science is like mathematics in that researchers in both disciplines can clearly distinguish what is known from what is unknown at each stage of discovery." I think modern science does not claim absolute certainty and is supposed to be open to new information that can require revision of old conclusions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:57, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Mathematical proof stems from antiquity, and scientific discovery is at least as old. But mathematics depends on mathematicians, who examine the statements of other mathematicians for correctness in a long chain. Parts of the chain are accepted by other mathematicians from reputation alone. This was the discovery of Vladimir Voevodsky (1966-2017), who turned to proof assistants to break his dependence on acceptance of a supposed mathematical proof by other humans, and that parts of his accepted proofs were incorrect, remaining undetected for fourteen years. So even mathematical certainty is also problematic, just as scientific proof is not totally certain.

I hope the article clearly establishes that science, at least, is open to new knowledge, "The wonderful thing about science is that it's alive." —Richard Feynman. I think it is clear that there is a body of open questions in both mathematics and science. If not, we need to fix this. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:44, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Good points. I edited the sentence, changing "can clearly" to "try to" (diff). What do you think?   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 00:32, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 January 2018

Citation 59 says "pp. 65, 73, 92, 398 – Andrew J. Galambos, Sic Itur ad Astra ISBN 0-88078-004-5(AJG learned scientific method from Felix Ehrenhaft". The part "(AJG learned scientific method from Felix Ehrenhaft" is missing at least a closing bracket. Actually, it's not quite clear what is meant by this sentence, and the grammar doesn't help either. Imphil (talk) 12:18, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I can add a space and a closing paren. The author learned his scientific method in the traditional way, face-to-face from a working scientist, Felix Ehrenhaft, the points of the method as cited. Does this suffice? --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:32, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

 Already done Closing parent added. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:42, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

"Elements of the scientific method" section

This relates to the edit request above. The minor point of a missing closing paren was easily addressed but the larger point of the awful use of sources in the entire definitional section there needs further discussion. Citations are sprinkled through this as if from a saltshaker and festoon nearly every significant term with multiple footnote references.

These references larded through this short paragraph are themselves of highly dubious usability. To take just the citation mentioned above: The actual usable portion consists in its entirety of "Andrew J. Galambos, Sic Itur ad Astra ISBN 0-88078-004-5". I presume this is meant to be the author's name, a title of the work, and we as readers are expected to track down all other pertinent information from the ISBN. This complies with no normally-used citation style used here nor does it comply with any citation style in professional literature I have ever been exposed to. How one small three-word noun phrase is supposed to be cited to four separate pages is also rather opaque, not to mention that the notation about the author's training has no relevance to any citation of any sort. Even assuming an interested reader would eventually track this work down, it appears to be an e-book available through all of 3 university library systems in the entire United States that was apparently self-published. The entire citation seems to add less than nothing to the article.

The rest of these citations seem equally lacking. They include multiple examples that are of no use and are themselves internally cited in dubious ways. These include sources that are a best highly obscure and at worst, positively ancient and unverifiable. There is no reason for the vast majority of these citations and they neither support the claims made in any significant way nor do they contribute to any reader's understanding of the definition.

The text can be rewritten as follows without losing any significant support and with improved readability and verifiability of the citations:

The scientific method is generally recognized to develop advances in knowledge through the following elements, in varying combinations or contributions:

• Characterizations (observations, definitions, and measurements of the subject of inquiry)
• Hypotheses (theoretical, hypothetical explanations of observations and measurements of the subject)
• Predictions (inductive and deductive reasoning from the hypothesis or theory)
• Experiments (tests of all of the above)

It's extremely odd that this article on the philosophy of science did not previously actually directly cite these two sources anywhere. They are both considered seminal works in the field and their absence (except for using Kuhn as a general reference) is a huge lacuna. Also, the current text, by attempting to piece together this list from individual cites, is definite synthesis. I invite reactions to this proposed simplification. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:57, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

References

Perhaps Hugh Gauch, Ludwik Fleck, William Stanley Jevons, and the rest might merit your consideration, as well. In 2004, we managed to stabilize the article (we were able to counter views that in fact denied existence of any method). A look back at the references which definitely played a part in the scientific method might well apply to the transmission of the scientific method, which occurred in an informal basis face to face, as shown by the current citations. Fleck, The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (in German at the time that Kuhn read it) in particular was of value to Kuhn. Jevons' 3-step method (The principles of science : a treatise on logic and scientific method) was influential for Charles Sanders Peirce, who wrote extensively on the scientific method in his time.

See also Hans Christian Ørsted, J. S. Mill, Galileo, Giambattista della Porta, Kepler, and Isaac Newton, mentioned in a previous section. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 21:50, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

It's not about what merits consideration but about what's good for the reader. Those authors (well, Jevons and Pierce, the ones I'm familiar with) are important but we don't generally over-cite in our articles unless there is a real reason to. "Somebody was a problem 14 years ago so we need to keep it to what we finally managed to use to refute them then," does not seem like a real reason for keeping it this way now. I'm also not sure that the current citations show anything about face-to-face transmission. It's a parenthetical buried in a broken cite to a non-notable source that seems to be trying to justify using that source on external grounds. That's horrible sourcing. Face-to-face transmission of history doesn't actually support "four essential elements" anyway. On top of all that, the "DNA example" section above says almost exactly the same thing this paragraph without needing more than 7 references, so it's doubtful that this section needs 13. Between Kuhn and Galison, everything this paragraph tries to say is said and supported. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:59, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Jevons came up because we were trying to track the 'wash, rinse, repeat' aspect of the method. He was the earliest we could find. Fleck comes up because he showed that facts are socially generated. I agree that the DNA story demonstrates the face-to-face point very well (Watson and Crick discussing what/where/when.). --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 22:10, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Ok. That's all well and good but, again, is that necessary now? I get why it was probably done and not having been editing this article at that time I'm sure your reasons then were sound. This is an encyclopedia article, though, not a graduate seminar or thesis. We don't need to support it like one anymore if the original impetus is outdated, as it seems to be. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:18, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Kuhn is well-received and canonical; Galison touches on the rhetoric of science, if I understand your citation. Since science is a never-ending, ever-more-precise journey, the readers need to come away with a sense of the reliability of the science, so that they might feel what they have learned is observable, repeatable, true, and valid. Epicurus would have agreed with this expectation. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 23:10, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

I think I'm missing something here. Are you saying that you agree that replacing the current text with the above suggestion citing Kuhn and Galison is OK, or do you want to use the above text with some additions, or do you want to add Kuhn and Galison to the current text? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:18, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

My understanding is that you propose replacing the current text, perhaps supplementing the citations. I have read my sources and cited them but I would have to depend on your reading of Galison. It's difficult for me to assess Galison, except as a history of an important part of the Standard Model, which is a partial theory. That would be OK for a never-ending process. It's important for the reader to understand that scientific certainty keeps receding. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 23:53, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

It may be appropriate to mention the Navigation Popups which keeps sub-articles accessible for reading simultaneously while reading a current article. If a reader is simply trying to formulate a scientific method, might I recommend hypothetico-deductive model, which lists a 4-step method. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 00:16, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

@Ancheta Wis:Would this slight expansion then be a better replacement text?

The scientific method is an iterative, cyclical process through which information is continually revised. It is generally recognized to develop advances in knowledge through the following elements, in varying combinations or contributions:

• Characterizations (observations, definitions, and measurements of the subject of inquiry)
• Hypotheses (theoretical, hypothetical explanations of observations and measurements of the subject)
• Predictions (inductive and deductive reasoning from the hypothesis or theory)
• Experiments (tests of all of the above)

I added the previous cites from Godfrey-Smith and Brody to support the iterative, cyclical nature. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:05, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Godfrey-Smith and Brody are fine citations. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 21:25, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I've made the change to the article text per above. Thanks again for your assistance. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:35, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 1 March 2018

Change:

Thus, much scientifically based speculation might convince one (or many) that the hypothesis that other intelligent species exist is true. But since there no experiment now known which can test this hypothesis, science itself can have little to say about the possibility. In future, some new technique might lead to an experimental test and the speculation would then become part of accepted science.

To:

For example, while a hypothesis on the existence of other intelligent species may be convincing with scientifically based speculation, there is no known experiment which can test this hypothesis. Therefore, science itself can have little to say about the possibility. In future, a new technique may allow for an experimental test and the speculation would then become part of accepted science. Danrwhitcomb (talk) 14:22, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done with a minor grammatical fix. RockMagnetist(talk) 16:49, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

However, I think it would be better to have an example that has already made the transition from speculation to science. Also, this section has no sources. RockMagnetist(talk) 16:51, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove or Replace the diagram "The Scientific Method as an Ongoing Process"

I strongly object with the usage of the lead in image for a number of reasons.

I am not a professional scientist. I will not try and pretend like I know more than I do, only present my assumptions and reason for objections based on what I've researched. I don't want to be like this quote from archive 16

"All in all, the Scientific methods article is just what Feynman warned us about: a bunch of non-scientists trying to tell scientists what science is, and how to do science..."

—Jsd, JUNE 3, 2009.

My reasons for object:

• The image is confusing.

There is no obvious starting point or ending point, and to understand this diagram one must first have a pre-existing concept of the Scientific Method to know where to begin, thus it's certainly not an ideal candidate as an image to represent the scientific method as a whole. I do perceive that it intends to convey the cyclical nature of the process of science but this cycle is in contrast to a typical definition of "method" where which all meanings imply that a method is a means to a definite end. That's not to say that the scientific method cannot be re-applied but this image obfuscates the nature of it's means to an end. All other presentations of the scientific I've seen are specifically linear. If you look at the earliest version of this image posted you will see that it is less linear, and has a more firm start and end. The image was changed to current on August 7 2015.

• The image is not representative of the standard concept of The Scientific Method, but it's prominence makes it appear so.

It's prescribing a specific Scientific Method while the remainder of the article delineates that there are many methods of scientific inquiry "The Scientific Method" being one of many forms of scientific inquiry.

• The image when added was likely a COI (conflict of interest).

The original image was added by Whatiguana on March 20 2015 the same stated publish date as http://idea.ucr.edu/documents/flash/scientific_method/story_html5.html The Scientific Method as an Ongoing Process, by Professor Theodore Garland Jr.. (It's notable that in the final slide The Scientific Method is renamed "The Scientific Process" as that's more fitting for his model of the the method, at least that's how I read it.) On Whatiguana's talk page in September 2013 Whatiguana was warned about COI for making changes to Theodore_Garland Jr.. Also all the images posted by Whatiguana are attributed to Theodore Garland Jr.

If there is to be any lead-in image I suggest that it be an image that follow a form such as this image. I'm only suggesting a similar diagram, not this specific image as it is likely subject to copyright. Or for that matter, have no lead in model at all, as there are various, and any will be taken as representative of the page as a whole. --Eyesnote (talk) 19:10, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

The article is clear that there is not a set, cut-and-dried procedure. That is why there is currently no start point. A previous version of the diagram was color-coded, with a red-hued arrow as a possible first stage in an endless cycle. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 22:33, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

A version with the red arrow I was referring to is dated 22:21, 7 August 2015. The diagram accurately depicts the 'inner loop' in mature processes, it being understood that an unending series of questions are spawned from the more-accurate inner loop.--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 22:45, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree with @Eyesnote: that the figure should be removed, but it is only a minor symptom of the general problem of this article, which generaly advances the notion that there is such a thing as the scientific method. It does not discuss the scientific methods as actually discussed by philosophers from Aristotle to Popper to Kuhn or as practiced by scientists from the Babylonian astronomers to molecular biologists, but instead presents a caricature favored by science education programs. One such program, the University of California - Riverside's Institute for the Development of Educational Applications, which Theodore Garland Jr. directs, is the source of this diagram. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:22, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

The perennial topic on Talk:Scientific_method#The is listed above. As it stands, 'the scientific method' currently occurs 58 times in the article; the article editors have decided usage on 'the'. The current discussion of specific history of methods is in history of scientific method, as you know. The text in the current diagram as well as in 22:21, 7 August 2015 file is nuanced, so there is actually a nuanced philosophical view embodied in the diagram. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 20:19, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I share SteveMcCluskey's discomfort with the "the". I note the discussion about this was a very long time ago. It is not a really convincing looking discussion?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:21, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@User:Chiswick_Chap what would you think if we were to use the multiple colored arrows in File:The Scientific Method as an Ongoing Process.svg ? That would have the advantage that the specific stages of the process of development could be denoted by differently colored arrows. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 20:15, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I can't see any reason for using differently coloured arrows for the same type of connector, which seems to mean simply "is followed by" in every case. There is indeed no definite start point. Perhaps the pedantic would be helped if the bubbles were numbered from 1 for 'Think of interesting questions', which is as good a start point as any. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:50, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:17, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Eyesnote:, one possibility might be to illustrate the lede with the Feather and hammer drop on the moon. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:17, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

I like that idea! RockMagnetist(talk) 04:21, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this is more fitting. -Eyesnote (talk) 16:47, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

My view on the current diagram: I think the link from "Develop General Theories" to "Make Observations" is dubious. If we consider the example of theories like QM and GR, better continuations would be "Keep Subjecting Them to Ever More Stringent Tests" and "Find Lots of Applications for Them". RockMagnetist(talk) 04:25, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Giving it a second look, using one diagram to illustrate "Scientific Method" or "The Scientific Method" is unrepresentative of the extreme diversity of models. Although there are many shared elements there appears to be no consensus on what is "The Scientific Method" process. -Eyesnote (talk) 16:47, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

I think that the image should be removed because there are indeed many scientific method models out there and no scientist has ever literally used one or followed any of these models when it came to scientific research. I think a very good text on the matter is "Scientific Method in Practice" by Hugh Gauch Jr. (Cambridge University Press), which details these facts very well. Science, just like cooking or making a shelter involves critical thinking and reflection. Science is not really a unique endeavor and even the AAAS has stated that the sciences are actually a liberal art. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 02:33, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2018

Remove Lead in Image of article, "The Scientific Method as an Ongoing Process"

It appears there is a reasonable level of consensus in the discussion on the topic from last week. Please remove the image The Scientific Method as an Ongoing Process lead in image, and replace it with The Apollo 15 Hammer-Feather Drop Demonstration as proposed by Ancheta Wis. This image is source from NASA and is in the public domain. The image caption should be "The Apollo 15 Hammer-Feather Drop, showing scientific method in practice." Link it to the NASA page as well, if that is appropriate.

Once this is done the talk topic "Proposal: Remove or Replace the diagram 'The Scientific Method as an Ongoing Process'", can be archived.

I'm an inexperienced editor, so I hope I'm following correct procedure here. Eyesnote (talk) 19:04, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: for technical reasons only, with no comment on the appropriateness of this request. The text in question is in the image file, so its removal would have to be done to the electronic image, which is hosted on Wikimedia Commons. We can't alter the image from this article other than to remove it entirely or alter the caption below the image ("The scientific method as a cyclic or iterative process"). —KuyaBriBri^Talk 21:43, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Eyesnote, since this section you made is the same one as above, I don't think you need to make another one like this. It could cause confusion as if one discussion was finished, when your new section is just a continuation of the same discussion thread.

Having said that I have removed the image because there is agreement that there are multiple models and even the article observes that some scientists and philosophers of science don't think a scientific method exists or that it is useful or relevant. If you want to add a replacement image, then you can discuss it here on the talk page to see if others can agree with you. Hope this helps. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 03:41, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you; I find that change satisfactory. If anyone else would like to propose or push for a replacement, that will be up to them. Eyesnote (talk) 16:29, 12 April 2018 (UTC)