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Re: scientific methods



Here are two candidates:

1. From Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson
“Science, to put its warrant as concisely as possible, is the organized,
systematic enterprise that gathers knowledge about the world and condenses
that knowledge into testable laws and principles. The diagnostic features
of science that distinguish it from pseudoscience are first, repeatability:
The same phenomenon is sought again, preferably by independent
investigation, and the interpretation given to it confirmed or discarded by
means of novel analysis and experimentation. Second, economy: Scientists
attempt to abstract the information into the form that is both simplest and
aesthetically most pleasing – the combination called elegance – while
yielding the largest amount of information with the least amount of effort.
Third, mensuration: If something can be properly measured, using universally
accepted scales, generalizations about it are rendered unambiguous. Fourth,
heuristics: The best science stimulates further discovery, often in
unpredictable new directions; and the new knowledge provides an additional
test of the original principles that led to its discovery. Fifth and
finally, consilience: The explanations of different phenomena most likely to
survive as those that can be connected and proved consistent with one
another.”
“The cutting edge of science is reductionism, the breaking apart of nature
into it natural constituents… Practicing scientists view reductionism (as)
the search strategy employed to find points of entry into otherwise
impenetrably complex systems. Complexity is what interests scientists in
the end, not simplicity. Reductionism is the way to understand it. The
love of complexity with reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with
reductionism makes science.
Here’s how reductionism works most of the time, as it might appear in a user
’s manual. Let you mind travel around the system. Pose an interesting
question about it. Break the question down and visualize the elements and
questions it implies. Think out alternative conceivable answers. Phrase
them so that a reasonable amount of evidence makes a clear cut choice
possible. If too many conceptual difficulties are encountered, back off.
Search for another question. When you finally hit a soft spot, search for a
model system – say a controlled emission in particle physics or a fast
breeding organism in genetics –on which decisive experiments can be most
easily conducted. Become thoroughly familiar – no, better, become
obsessed – with the system. Love the details, the feel of all of them, for
their own sake. Design the experiment so that no matter what the result,
the answer to the question will be convincing. Use the result to press on
to new questions, new systems. Depending on how far others have already
gone in this sequence (and always keep in mind, you must give them complete
credit), you may enter it at any point along the way.”
From Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson

2. "What is Science" by Richard Feynman in The Physics Teacher September
1969,
"Another of the qualities of science is that it teaches the value of
rational thought, as well as the importance of freedom of thought; the
positive results that come from doubting that the lessons are all true. You
must here distinguish - especially in teaching - the science from the forms
or procedures that are sometimes used in developing science. It is easy to
say, "We write, experiment, and observe, and do this or that." You can copy
that form exactly. But great religions are dissipated by following form
without remembering the direct content of the teaching of the great leaders.
In the same way, it is possible to follow form and call it science, but that
is pseudoscience. In this way, we all suffer from the kind of tyranny we
have today in many institutions that have come under the influence of
pseudoscientific advisers.
We have many studies in teaching, for example, in which people make
observations, make lists, do statistics, and so on, but these do not thereby
become established science, established knowledge. They are merely an
imitative form of science - analogous to the South Sea island airfields,
radio towers, etc. made out of wood. The islanders expect a great airplane
to arrive. They even build wooden airplanes of the same shape as they see
in the foreigner's airfields around them, but strangely enough, their wood
planes do not fly. The result of this pseudoscientific imitation is to
produce experts, which many of you are. You teachers who are really
teaching children at the bottom of the heap can maybe doubt the experts once
in a while. Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a
matter of fact, I can define science another way: Science is the belief in
the ignorance of experts."
When someone says, "Science teaches such and such," he is using the word
incorrectly. Science doesn't teach anything; experience teaches it. If
they say to you, "Science has shown such and such," you might ask, "How does
science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where? It
should not be "science has shown," but "this experiment, this effect, has
shown." And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the
experiments (but be patient and listen to all the evidence) to judge whether
a sensible conclusion has been arrived at.
In a field which is so complicated that true science is not yet able to get
anywhere, we have to rely on a kind of old-fashioned wisdom, a kind of
definite straightforwardness. I am trying to inspire the teacher at the
bottom to have some hope, and some self-confidence in common sense and
natural intelligence. The experts who are leading you may be wrong."

Larry Woolf;General Atomics;6995 Flanders Dr.;MS 78-107;San Diego CA
92121-2975; Ph:858-526-8575;FAX:858-526-8568; www.ga.com; www.sci-ed-ga.org

-----Original Message-----
From: John S. Denker
Sent: Sunday, September 01, 2002 8:43 AM
Subject: Re: scientific methods


Those of us who don't like the usual discussion of "the"
scientific method ought to come up with something better.
There has been lots written on the subject. Entire books.
A lot of what has been written is nonsense but some of it
is pretty good.
-- I particularly like Feynman _The Character of Physical
Law_
-- There are some important insights in Kuhn _The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions_

What is needed, and what I haven't seen, is a sensible
one-page discussion of the main points. This ought to
be doable. (If it's not doable, somebody should explain
why not.) Any volunteers?