Key points of scientific method

• The scientific method is a manner of thinking and working towards more complete knowledge of the world.
• To be scientific, a statement must, in principle, be falsifiable.
• Sciences may be classified as experimental, observational, or historical.
• There are many forms of scientific inference, with different logical foundations and degrees of rigour. to lax.
• Scientific explanation is linked to causality. A parsimonious explanation is preferred.
• A scientific statement may be a fact, hypothesis, theory, or law, each with a level of certainty.
• An important type of scientific reasoning is deductive-inductive.
• Scientific explanation requires sound logical thinking.

Types of sciences

• Scientific activity can be classified as experimental, observational, or historical. All three require a separate step of model building.
• Experimental
• Observational
• Historical

What is science?

To “do science” is to follow a prescribed method to arrive at knowledge. The “scientific method” is not a belief system or religious dogma, but rather a manner of thinking and working towards more complete knowledge of the world. It has been proven to be extremely successful in:

• explaining the world as we observe it;
• predicting what can be further observed, e.g. new observations, new locations, repeat observations, the effect of interventions;
• engineering, i.e. building things that work.

Science is not prescriptive – it can not say what “ought” to be done. It can, however, point out the probable consequences of certain actions, as objectively as possible.

Characteristics of scientific knowledge

• Self-criticism
• Evidence-based
• Theory-based
• Transparency
• No appeal to authority

Scientific inference

Science attempts to reach conclusions from premises and observations, using some form of rational argument. The general term for making new statements on the basis of previous statements is inference.

• Purely logical
• Deductive-induct
• Cause & effect
• Contributors & impacts
• Inductive patterns (classification)
• Case studies
• Analogy
• Probabilistic
• Functional
• Systems explanations
• (Expert) Judgement / Wisdom / Intuition
• Teleological, ‘higher’ purpose, external cause

Scientific explanation

To “explain” is to say “why” something happens or is observed – but this is very difficult, if not impossible, to establish. In applied science and engineering we are mostly content with a more limited view of “why”: a coherent statement that allows prediction of the phenomenon in the future, in other situations or at other locations besides the ones already observed.

Process of explanation: “Making an unexpected outcome an expected outcome, of making a curious event seem natural or normal” ; it becomes ‘natural’ once the processes which gives rise to the outcome (given similar conditions) are clear.

The concept of “causality” is also tricky. What appears at first to be the cause must itself have a cause, and so forth. The proximate (immediate) cause may be fairly easy to establish, but the deeper causes requires either more evidence or more speculation. It is probably meaningless to speak of an “ultimate” (last, final) cause.

Ockham’s Razor

“Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate”

“Complexity should never be added to an explanation unless necessary”

This means that if several theories equally explain the observed facts, the simplest should be used.

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References