I mistakenly replied to only Dr. Taber.
I didn't clearly convey my thoughts about the books scientific method. I found it odd that the book had (in my opinion) such an odd approach to other things, but actually got the scientific method part right.
Have a good one.
Sorry you may have gotten this not twice.
Paul Lulai
St Anthony Village Senior High
----- Reply message -----
From: "Dr. Keith S. Taber" <kst24@cam.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, Sep 14, 2012 1:35 am
Subject: [Phys-L] strange things in chem book & scientific methods
To: "Phys-L@Phys-L.org" <Phys-L@Phys-L.org>, "marx@phy.ilstu.edu" <marx@phy.ilstu.edu>
At 03:00 +0000 14/9/12, Paul Lulai wrote:
...Oddly, it states that there is no one single Scientific Method.
Hi, Paul
Why do you consider that odd?
Unless you take 'scientific method' to mean something so general that
the term becomes virtually meaningless, surely there is no one
scientific method. (Do you think it is odd because it does not sit
with some of the other rather simplistic and dubious statements in
the book?)
I work in the UK system where for a while we had a curriculum and
assessment regime in place which encouraged students to see
scientific work in terms of a simple 'control-of-variables'
experimental method. One does not have to adopt an extreme
Feyerabend-like perspective on scientific processes (i.e. the history
of science suggests there is no such thing as scientific method) to
acknowledge there are many scientific fields where such an approach
is seldom adopted or even possible.