Science public observation

The emphasis on public observations in science has had a misleading quality insofar as it implies that any intelligent man can replicate a scientists observations. This may have been true early in the history of science, but nowadays only the trained observer can replicate many observations. I cannot go into a modern physicist s laboratory and confirm his observations, indeed, his talk of what he has found in his experiments (physicists seem to talk about innumerable invisible entities) would probably seem mystical to me, just as descriptions of internal states sound mystical to those with a background in the physical sciences.X41... 

Public observation, then, always refers to a limited, specially trained public, it is only by basic agreement among those specially trained people that data become accepted as a foundation for the development of a science. That laymen cannot replicate the observations is of little relevance. 

Of particular interest is the fundamental science and technology of the solid solutions between II-VI binary compounds. These isovalent alloys may be classified according to the scheme introduced previously (see Sect. 1.2.3) - a convenient matrix diagram comprising their observed structures can be found in a publication of Wei and Zunger [102]. 

There are four basic rules of scientific method to which an investigator is committed (1) good observation, (2) the public nature of observation, (3) the necessity to theorize logically, and (4) the testing of theory by observable consequences. These constitute the scientific enterprise. I consider below the wider application of each rule to d-ASCs and indicate how unnecessary physicaliStic restrictions may be dropped. I also show that all these commitments or rules can be accommodated in the development of state-specific sciences. 

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