Re: scientific method

["Glenn A. Carlson" <gcarlson@MAIL.WIN.ORG>]

What Galileo, Onnes, Mendeleev, and Penzias and Wilson did is called
observation -- which is a necessary part of the scientific method.
But observation alone is not sufficient to be called the scientific
method.

Induction certainly has a legitimate role in the scientific method.
Induction often assists in developing a falsifiable hypothesis to
explain a set of observations, but induction is not a necessary part
of the scientific method.

Individual scientists need not perform every step of the scientific
method (we frequently speak of theorists and experimentalists).  Nor
must the steps be performed in a strictly linear fashion.  Nor must
the scientific method be performed to the exclusion of other
nonscientific activities.  Recall the story of how Kekule discovered
(actually hypothesized) the structure of the benzene ring through a
dream about a snake biting its own tail.

But, all scientists contribute to the body of knowledge about the
universe by taking part in the scientific method.

As for how we learn what's going on in (i.e., the truth of) the
universe, I can only think of two ways:  the scientific method and
divine revelation.  Contrary to the views of creationists, the latter
is not science.

Glenn A. Carlson, P.E.
gcarlson@mail.win.org
==============

Subject: Re: scientific method(s)
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 17:05:52 -0500
From: John Denker <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>

At 01:55 PM 2/27/00 -0600, Glenn A. Carlson wrote in part:
> The scientific method is a process by which we describe the true
> nature of the universe (whatever "true" means, and whatever "universe"
> means) through a process of observation, statement of a falsifiable
> hypothesis, deductive testing of the hypothesis by experimentation,
> etc.

Subject: Re: scientific method(s)
   Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 17:05:52 -0500
   From: John Denker <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>

The process just described is "a" process.  It's certainly not
exclusively
"the" process by which we learn what's going on in the universe.

<snip>

When Galileo built his telescope, he was not testing the hypothesis
that
there were moons around Jupiter.  When Kamerling Onnes

<snip>

Deduction plays a role in science, but not the role suggested by the
foregoing statement of "the scientific method".

<snip>

In fact, though, most of real life, including most of real science, is
a rich messy mixture of deduction and induction.