Science and the Scientific Method

We have selected a few of Antoine Lavoisier s early experiments to illustrate what has become known as the scientific method (Fig 1.4). Examining the history of physical and biological sciences reveals features that occur repeatedly. They show how science works, develops, and progresses. They include 

Observing. A wooden log loses weight when it burns. 

Proposing a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a tentative explanation for observations. For example Wood—and everything else—contains phlogiston. When something burns, it loses phlogiston. 

Being skeptical. Lavoisier didn t go along with the idea that the loss in weight in a burning log could be explained by the departure of some never-seen and never-described substance called phlogiston. 

Predicting an outcome that should result if the hypothesis is true. When phosphorus burns, it should lose weight. 

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Cleland, C.E. 2001. Historical science, experimental science, and the scientific method. Geology 29 987-990. 

Medicine is not a science. Nevertheless, the delivery of Western medicine depends totally on science and the scientific method. 

There is no absolute knowledge in science and the scientific method assumes that there is a material world of objects and phenomena existing out there that is independent of the observers, the scientists. However, some physicists might question the assertion that the material world is independent of the observers. Thus, Schrodinger s cat is both alive and dead until the observation is made, i.e. the box is opened, the wave function is collapsed, and one of the eventualities - alive or dead - is manifested. 

Subramaniam, Banu. 2000. Snow Brown and the Seven Detergents A Meta-Narrative on Science and the Scientific Method Women s Studies Quarterly 28 (1-2) 296-304... 

Both science and the courts are tasked with deriving information from evidence pertinent to the issue at hand. Science employs the scientific method to do so, whereas the courts employ the adversarial system, in which two opposing parties present arguments before the trier of fact. Scientific evidence and testimony may support or refute either argument. The relative... 

The scientific method, as mentioned, involves observation and experimentation (research) to discover or establish facts. These are followed by deduction or hypothesis, establishing theories or principles. This sequence, however, may be reversed. The noted twentieth-century philosopher Karl Popper, who also dealt with science, expressed the view that the scientist s work starts not with collection of data (observation) but with selection of a suitable problem (theory). In fact, both of these paths can be involved. vSignificant and sometimes accidental observations can be made without any preconceived idea of a problem or theory and vice versa. The scientist, however, must have a well-prepared, open mind to be able to recognize the significance of such observations and must be able to follow them through. Science always demands rigorous standards of procedure, reproducibility, and open discussion that set reason over irrational belief. 

Adherence to the scientific method is what de fines science The scientific method has four major el ements observation law theory and hypothesis... 

It can be said that science is the art of budding models to explain observations and predict new ones. Chemistry, as the central science, utilizes models ia virtually every aspect of the discipline. From the first week of a first chemistry course, students use the scientific method to develop models which explain the behavior of the elements. Anyone who studies or uses chemistry has, ia fact, practiced some form of molecular modeling. 

In 1951, he received the Emil Fischer Medal of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, and in 1957, the Grosse Verdienstkreuz (Grand Service Cross) of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart conferred upon him the honorary doctorate of Dr. ing. h.c. The Saxon Academy of Science and the Leopoldina in Halle, East Germany, elected him an honorary member. His scientific work, which found expression in 328 publications and 16 patents, is characterized by originality and a comprehensive command of experimental method. 

At present, it appears that the most productive types of constructive clustering in the physical and life sciences will be the growing neural gas and the GCS methods in this chapter we focus on the latter. Although this method has notable advantages over the SOM, scientific applications of the GCS have only recently started to appear. There is a little more to the method than a SOM because of the need to grow the network as well as train it, but lack of familiarity with the technique rather than a lack of power explains the present paucity of applications in science because GCSs have nearly all the advantages of the SOM with few of the drawbacks. 

The Sherlock Holmes stories often are read as the triumph of the scientific method of deduction. There is, though, another, darker interpretation to be advanced. That is the frustration of science and technology in changing everyday social practice. Throughout the canon, Holmes is consistently thwarted by the standard operating procedures of the Scotland Yard "regulars." He also is annoyed—and even disturbed—by the inability of Victorian... 

Learning the Scientific Method Through the Historical Approach. School Science and Math, 53, 637-43 (1953). 

Foucault, like his French predecessor and mentor, Gaston Bachelard, paid particular attention to the primacy in history of discursive breaks and ruptures in knowledge or belief systems.3 In this and in Foucault s emphasis on the relative coercion that disciplines exercised on their practitioners, he made arguments already familiar to Anglo-American scholars acquainted with Kuhn s characterizations of "normal science" and the reasons for a scientific community s coherent outlook. However, unlike Kuhn, Foucault declined to dissect the so-called hard sciences as objects of inquiry, restricting himself to discourses and power relationships in the medical, biological, and social sciences.4 However, Foucault did see the potential in the application of his method for the destruction of the demarcation between scientific and nonscientific spheres of action and belief. 

The purpose of this discussion of science, clearly, is to apply it to herbal medicine. The reputed uses of drugs may not always be accurate or effective. Applying the scientific method to herbal medicine therefore allows us to test the traditional uses and to know with greater certainty what an herbal medication does and how reliably it does it. Although far from infallible, the process as a whole gives us greater confidence in our conclusions. 

It is a commonly held view that the scientific method of inquiry is, or at least ought to be, objective in the sense that it should transcend the personal value system of the researcher. The terms bad science, better science or best science are often used to connote the perceived degree of objectivity of a particular scientific activity

. Further, trans science is a term which was coined to sort and label putative encroachments upon "objective science by issues that can be posed as scientific questions but cannot be answered by the available means of scientific experimentation(15). The term was introduced because it was thought that the division of technologically important issues into scientific and trans-scientific would significantly reduce the problems of converting data into useful iformation. 

As will be shown below, the notion that science is objective is mistaken and the mistake contributes to many of the problems encountered when scientific reseach has immediate economic or political consequences(16-21). It should not be surprising that years after the introduction of the concept of trans-science, we still observe difficulty, conflict and general misunderstanding not of what science can or cannot do, but of what science does do and how. The reason is a general lack of appreciation that the scientific method of inquiry is inherently and specifically subjective and that it requires a value system without which it simply cannot be applied. 

Because of the interest in and popularity of alternative and complementary medicines and healing practices, the scientific method is being applied to a wide variety of these remedies. Different types of studies seek to establish if and how individual, alternative medicines exert their effect. Clinical trials are being conducted to compare a specific alternative medicines with the accepted conventional medical standard of care for a specific condition thus, for example, an herbal extract may be compared with a pharmaceutical-grade drug to demonstrate unequivocally the safety and effectiveness of a product or practice. However, complementary and alternative medicine has only recently been deemed worthy of scientific scrutiny (for decades many natural remedies and practices were dismissed outright as being obviously inferior to Western science-based medicine), and many alternative therapies have not yet been... 

Thus literate programming appears ideally suited to the task of publication in computational molecular physics and quantum chemistry, and indeed, in other computational sciences and in engineering. This task must entail placing both the theoretical model and the associated computer code in the public domain, where they can be subjected to the open criticism and constructive use which forms an integral part of the scientific method. 

Governments realize the importance and power of science and employ the latest scientific tools and methods to carry out their functions. Science and politics have become inseparable because of funding and regulation policies. Moreover, politicians intervene in the practice of science, sometimes diverting science and the interpretation of scientific findings away from where the evidence leads to directions deemed politically desirable. Three chapters in this volume, by William Happer, Henry I. Miller, and Joseph P. Martino describe some such political interventions. 

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