Discussion on the scientific method (moved from the Irish Celts thread)

[cmacq]

Well then, I shall invite you to Arizona so that you may work first hand in Archaeology for five days. We do two public archaeology projects every year; one in March and the other in October, both cool weather times here. That is, relatively cool weather times. The project initially slated for last October was postponed until the first week in February of next year, this due to my colleague, friend, and field partners unfortunately fall from his roof while wearing his hippie sandals. Partially, he landed on the ladder and broke his right caleaneus into one big and about 29 smaller pieces. Or was it his left? Not to worry he'll be up and about soon. Any way, after being immersed for a week I’m sure you’ll have a greater appreciation of the way the scientific method actually works. Right, as this PIT project will be in what we call the Thumb (east central uplands) and it will be early February, day time temps may be very cool and the nights below freezing. Wear something warm, but not too warm.




CmacQ

[bovi]

I guess there is a tiny difference between "you can safely rely on" and "you can be certain of". It's pretty close though, and you said one about theory and the other about fact. I took a tiny jump to think you equated them.

In the end, I think we end up with that scientific theory is the hypothesis that is yet to be disproven, with the addendum that it has stayed that way for a long time.

Edit: Oh, and there's no need for a lock. I moved this discussion out so it wouldn't interfere with the other in that thread.

[V.T. Marvin]

Very interesting discussion is going on here and I would ask the moderators NOT to stop it by a premature lock.

I would just comment that in my opinion BOTH The Celtic Viking and cmacq are in some sense right.

In his original post The Celtic Viking briefly described the major points of the "critical rationalist" theory developed by Karl Popper. This is very much how things in science SHOULD be. While cmacq in his first post is very close to the decription of how the scientific "establishment" (sorry for my lack of a better word) works by T.S.Kuhn/P.K.Feyerabend, i.e. how things in science actually ARE.
Both narratives are legitimate and very powerful, and any buddying scientist will be well advised to familiarize with both of these major philosophies of the scientific process, preferaby in the major works of those authors themselves rather than by some epigones of theirs. But be aware, that both Popper on one side and Feyerabend and Kunh on the other are predominantly oriented towards the methodology of natural sciences or "the hard science" as physics. Even in this seemingly straightforward world of hypothesis-experiment-corroboration-falsification-etc. it is clear that neither of these big narratives is completely satisfactory. Rather both are to be used to provoke further thoght and make one to critically assess and refine his own methodology.
For instance we all know that world is NOT flat, but an brick-layer building a house coud safely rely on his builder´s level as if it was flat. We could still safely use old and disproven (falsified) newtonian physics to great benefit even after Einstein, and so on...

Now, as we on this forum have close to history and archeology, we are no longer on the completely same plane as the physicists are. In social sciences (Geistwissenschaften) it all becomes even more complicated. Here I would recommend as an introduction into thinging on what constitutes a historical fact and how historical narrative is construed to use E.H.Carr (What is history") or J. Le Goff (History and Memory) rather than "critical rationalism" of Popper or "revolutionary/anarchist" philosophy of science of Kuhn and Feyerabend.

I hope that this discussion will go on for a while, and I would welcome different views. The reason why I have posted this was just to illustrate my personal feeling that all of the diverging view that were posted before by other participants in this topic are - in my opinion - in some way an important part of modern scholarship and maybe actually not so diverging after all.

During my studies of history (Charles University, Prague) I was very disappointed by the extremely limited space which philosophy of science and historical methodology occupied in our curriculum.
I am now far away from being a historian, but I still find discussion on these issues refreshing and an great enrichment for me. I am looking forward for your further thoughts!

[We shall fwee...Wodewick]

I'm really liking this thread guys, I'm doing a degree in Engineering atm, but most of my work is currently learning the scientific and mathematical principles(which can be considered a science itself) so I miss out on all this good stuff, although I know quite a few physicists.

What I disapprove of sometimes, is the way in which people discard "scientific theories" stipulating that it's a theory and therefore not fact without presenting an alternative, because unfortunately in common usage away from Science, theories are thought of as "without evidence or observation". This is a pet hate in debates with people who no little about the things they disagree or the scientifically illiterate and simply refuse to accept any theory is true until it is proven fact, which is in most cases if not all impossible.