Re: [Phys-l] Scientific Method

[Joseph Bellina <jbellina@saintmarys.edu>]

I make a distinction between private science, public science, and  
school science.
Private science is what scientists do, there is so method as such as  
Woolf, Bridgman and others has indicated.  Bill Harwood has done some  
nice work on this.  See for example


Public science is what scientists and science journalists write or  
speak about.  It looks like the old scientific method since it gives  
the appearance of logic to the chaos that led to understanding.   
Again you will find this in Larry Woolf's presentation.

School science traditionally is a compendium of public science, a  
rhetoric of conclusions...I wish I knew who coined that.  The  
reformed school science works to mimic private science.  For that  
important reason, teachers who have only seen public and school  
science need powerful professional development to get them to  
understand the human reality of private science.

cheers,

joe

Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. Ph.D.
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556

On Jul 11, 2009, at 9:14 PM, Bruce McKay wrote:

> I do not know if it is what you want but I use "How do scientists
> really do science" a presentation by L. Woolf  available at:
> http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/GASEFPresentations.html
>
> There are also some some items on Scientific Method on Donald
> Simanek's  site including one by Percy Bridgman at
> http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/bridgman.htm
>
>
> Bruce McKay
> St. Ignatius' College
> Sydney, Australia
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "M. Horton" <scitch@verizon.net>
> To: "Forum for Physics Educators" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
> Cc: "Chemistry Education Discussion List" <CHEMED-L@MAILER.UWF.EDU>
> Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2009 4:03 PM
> Subject: [Phys-l] Scientific Method
>
> > I am helping to rewrite the manual for our county science fair.  The
> >  section on scientific method is the typical 7 steps of trying to
> > "prove or disprove"
> >  your hypothesis.  I volunteered to rewrite this section and do  
> > not want to
> >  start from scratch.  Does anybody have or know of a good  
> > treatment of good
> >  scientific experimentation that I can paraphrase?
> >
> >  Thanks in advance,
> >  M. Horton
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