III.15                  The Scientific Method
Have but contempt for reason and for science,
Man's noblest force spurn with defiance,
Subscribe to magic and illusion
The Lord of lies aids your confusion,
And, pact or no, I [the devil] hold you tight.
                                      Goethe (1749-1832)
 
The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.
                                                     Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
 
Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.
                                                     Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
                                        

To bring the scientific method to bear throughout culture would be progress without which there will probably be no future.
                                                                           This writer
 
Introduction
A. A Scientific Sub-Culture
B. A Method of Inquiry
C. A Working Procedure
D. A Distinction between Discovery and Justification
 
Introduction
We use the scientific methods because they are reasonably objective, public, and can give repeatable results. Moreover, the method includes check points that guard against reaching conclusions that are not warranted. Moreover, organized empirical science, most crucially, provides the most impressive result of human rationality and is one of the best-accredited candidates for informative and predictive knowledge. This is possible because the scientific method consists of and makes a distinction between the topics below.
 
A.  A Scientific Sub-Culture
The scientific method is not a series of self-evident steps, an algorithm, that solves problems or leads to discoveries. Instead, its fruitfulness depends on a a high standard of intellectual and moral integrity, as explained in The Common Moral Decencies and Ethical Excellences, and on an environment as made clear by J. Bronowski:

The society of science must be a democracy, [for] there are, oddly, no technical rules for success in science. Instead, the conditions for the practice of science are found to be of another and unexpected kind. Independence and originality, dissent and freedom and tolerance: such are the first needs of science; and these are the values which, of itself, it demands and forms.

 

B.  A Method of Inquiry
Science arrives at tentative, probable and objective truth through logical inferences from empirical evidence. It does not claim final or absolute truth and rejects authoritarian and dogmatic claims.
  • That science is "tentative" means it is open ended and incomplete. As new evidence is uncovered its findings may change, that is, older knowledge may be revised, replaced, or discarded. Thus, it is a self-correcting never-ending process of successive approximations.
  • "Probable truth" means there is no absolute certainty—truth is a matter of degree. However, probability is often a sufficient basis for action and belief.
  • "Objective truth" or objectivity indicates the demand for inter-subjectivity (do you see what I see?), that is, others must see or be able to replicate the findings. It follows that it excludes beliefs which stem from private, unique, unrepeatable experiences such as illusions, hallucinations, apparitions, and revelations.
  • And drawing "logical inferences" is simply reasoning about what follows from what.
  • Finally, "empirical" means from experience or observation whether direct or indirect with sense-extending instruments.
C.   A Working Procedure

This is how scientists generally proceed with their work. It is best established for the natural sciences but applies with modifications to all the sciences and even to the solving of personal problems. There are four major steps:

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena. The Method of Natural Science usually obtains knowledge by careful observation of the behavior of nature. However, as Albert Einstein demonstrated, theorizing without observation can also lead to deductions that make predictions that are then subject to experimental trial and verification.

2. Formulation of a hypothesis to explain that phenomena. The scientist, in seeking an understanding of how a phenomenon takes place, first uses his training and background in making an intelligent guess (hunch, speculation, conjecture) as to what is really happening. This guess is called a hypothesis, and it usually includes a prediction "if . . . ., then." In other words, a hypothesis is:

a. a supposition; a proposition or principle which is supposed or taken for granted, in order to draw a conclusion or inference for proof of the point in question; something not proved, but assumed for the purpose of argument;

b. a system or theory imagined or assumed to account for what is not understood (Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary).

3. Use of the hypothesis to make predictions. Experimental tests are, then, designed to see if the results support the hypothesis or cause its rejection or modification. However, when after many tests the weight of the evidence indicates that his hypothesis is sound, the findings are then declared as a theory. If this theory is subsequently proven to be a non-varying performance in nature, it is then claimed that a natural law (a regularity of nature) has been discovered.

4. Confirmation of the predictions thru experimental tests.

Summarized: Defining the problem + collecting data + forming a hypothesis + performing experiments and collecting its data + interpreting the data + evaluating the hypothesis in order to accept, modify, or reject it = scientific progress. Or more general:
 Careful observation + Persistent search for truth + Intelligent thought = Progress

 

D.           A Distinction between Discovery and Justification

The philosopher of science [the scientist] is not much interested in the thought processes which lead to scientific discoveries; he looks for a logical analysis of the completed theory, including the relationships establishing its validity. That is he is not interested in the context of discovery, but in the content of justification.

                                                            Galileo (1564-1642)

 

Galileo's distinction was revived by Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953). The differentiation is that between the non-logical process for arriving at a general hypothesis (hypothetico) and the logical relations (deductive logic) that hold between the hypothesis and the evidence for it. This is the so-called hypothetico-deductive method, which is one particular working procedure.

     A hypothesis is devised from which can be deduced certain explicit, observable predictions. Observations which run contrary to those predicted are taken as evidence against the hypothesis, observations which are in agreement with those predicted are taken as corroborating the hypothesis. It is then supposedly possible to compare the explanatory values of competing hypotheses by looking to see how well they are sustained by their predictions. The simplest, with the least assumptions, hypothesis that explains is then accepted.

     Jean Piaget (1896-1980) described the capacity for hypothetico-deductive reasoning as the ability to be able to deal with not only objects and experiences but with hypotheses as well, with "the possible as well as the real". Conclusions can now be deduced from hypotheses rather than just physical facts. This highlights the persons ability to make conclusions by going from general to specific, deductive reasoning.