Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Scientific Method



Joel Rauber wrote:

Leigh wrote:
I find the silly
"scientific method" that is taught in the schools to be of
little value. Why does one need a hypothesis? The student
often expects that Nature's opinion is of secondary
importance because she doesn't assign the grade.


Let me add another Right On! Why is it silly; because those rigid steps
listed in many middle school texts aren't the way the scientists I know
proceed.

I recall a quote, and if anybody remembers this please correct it and give
the citation; I think it was from Feynman who described the scientific
method as follows:

"Trying to figure out how nature works: no holds barred".

I think this is about as good a definition as any and more accurately
reflects how the practitioners actually proceed.

Does anybody recall the exact quote? And who it is from?


The exact quote from Percy W. Bridgeman is, " The scientific metod, so far as
it is a method, is nothing more than doing one's damnedest with one's mind, no
holds barred."
A web search found this on a chemistry course syllabus at LSU at
http://www.chem.lsu.edu/lucid/courseinfo/chem1001/ch1.html.

Hugh Logan