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Re: [Phys-l] Scientific Method



Hi

I agree completely with John; after co-teaching a philosophy of science course for many years, it is clear that the neat little 1) make a hypothesis, 2 gather data, 3 etc... taught in grade school just doesn't hold water (not even close).

I have tried (probably inadequately) to distill (from the reading in philo of science) a few important features the scientific process seems to have which sets it apart from other human endeavors on this web page:
http://homepages.ius.edu/kforinas/stuff/Krant.html#What_is_sience

Don't know if it will help you or just make things more confused...

kyle

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Message: 10
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:02:01 -0700
From: John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Scientific Method
To: Forum for Physics Educators <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Message-ID: <4A596039.70401@av8n.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On 07/11/2009 04:03 PM, M. Horton wrote:
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

It sounds like a rewrite would be a Good Thing.

There will be some trouble involved, but it's worth the trouble
to get this right.

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?

Often the best strategy for handling questions about "the scientific
method" is to deflect the question and restructure the discussion
along more reasonable lines, perhaps "the nature of science". The
NSTA statement
http://www.nsta.org/about/positions/natureofscience.aspx
takes IMHO a reasonable approach. It does not mention hypotheses.

* Specifically, I recommend that your first step should be
* to change the section heading from "The Scientific Method"
* to "The Nature of Science" or some such.

Any reasonable discussion of the nature of science should include the
observation that real scientific work is not nearly as _methodical_ as
some non-scientists seem to think it is.

If "the scientific method" is mentioned at all, the discussion should
feature the statement from Peter Medawar:
?There indeed is no such thing as "the" scientific method.?
by which he meant that (1) scientists use many methods, and (2)
the step-by-step hypothesis testing approach, which nonscientists
often call "the" scientific method, bears little if any resemblance
to what scientists actually do.
P. B. Medawar, _The Limits of Science_ p.51 (1960)

Similarly one could quote Feynman who said that science defies any
simple description, and that the usual elementary textbook
description is wrong.
R. P. Feynman, "What Is Science" (1966)
http://www.southerncrossreview.org/32/feynman3.htm

Also one should point out that national science fair rules do not
require hypothesis testing. They do not even mention hypotheses,
and (as far as anyone can tell) never have.

Larry Woolf appropriately excoriates hypothesis testing and makes a
number of other good points:
"How do scientists really do science?
http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/pdfs/how-do-science-10-10-04.pdf

If by any chance you do want a discussion of actual scientific methods,
take a look at
http://www.av8n.com/physics/scientific-methods.htm
but this may be more detail than you need for present purposes.



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--
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"When applied to material things,
the term "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron."
Albert Bartlett

kyle forinash 812-941-2039
kforinas@ius.edu
http://Physics.ius.edu/
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