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Re: [Phys-l] nature of science



Thank you -- It'll be one of the antibiotics I plan to use on the person in charge.

bc

p.s. I've got too many other irons heating to do this soon.

John Denker wrote:

As usual, for philosophical and pedagogical reasons (among others),
I don't like to spend very much time discussing misconceptions
(about the nature of science or anything else). There's just too
many of them. It's like trying to kill bacteria by shooting them
with a rifle, one by one. It's too much work, and there's too much
collateral damage.

My preference is to get the right idea out there, explain it
properly, and move on. (Exceptions can be made for misconceptions
that are particularly prevalent or particularly destructive.)

As for the specific topic of "hypothesis testing" which so often
comes up (more or less distorted) in connection with science fairs,
I have greatly expanded the discussion at
http://www.av8n.com/physics/scientific-methods.htm#sec-hypo

What was a short paragraph has become a small section. It says:

]] The lattermost stages of any systematic investigation can often be formalized in terms of
]] hypothesis testing. What’s more, it is often possible to describe an already-complete
]] experiment by stating what hypotheses are ruled out by the results, and what hypotheses are
]] consistent with the results. One should not imagine, however, that all scientific work is
]] motivated by hypotheses or organized in terms of hypotheses. Some is, and some isn’t.
]]
]] Science -- and especially research -- usually involves a multi-stage iterative process, where


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