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Scientific Method: Sciences
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A final criticism of the scientific method is that it provides no guidelines for choosing between two equally possible hypotheses (that meet all the other requirements for simplicity, evidential compliance, etc). Any scientist in such a situation will tend to support the hypothesis which "feels the best", and hence is likely to make a subjective selection influenced by cultural bias. Of course, if there is no physical experiment to distinguish one scientific hypothesis from another, then it cannot matter in one's ordinary life which one chooses to support. It is not the goal of science to answer all questions, nor even to explain phenomena which are not experimentally accessible. Science does not produce truth, it merely improves the currently best hypothesis about some aspect of reality. It cannot therefore, be a better source of value judgements or of answers to concerns in public policy.
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As proved above, the great advantage of the scientific method is that it is unprejudiced if the rules are adhered to. Errors can occur, either intrinsically by the failure of equipment, or by the increasing error in recording or measuring. However, in science there are standard ways of estimating and ... reducing errors. One does not have to believe the findings of the researcher, one can make the experiment and therefore determine for oneself whether the truth is there or not. This is the fundamental difference between science and art, and even science and an act of faith.
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Science operates through the use of the Scientific Method. This is a method of study in which scientists work like detectives to gather data, and to figure out what happened. First, the scientific investigation begins with a question or an observation which leads to a question. Examples of such questions are:
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In his enunciation of a 'scientific method' in the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon was inspired by the writings of Arab alchemists, who had preserved and built upon Aristotle's portrait of induction. Bacon described a repeating cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and the need for independent verification. In the 17th century Francis Bacon described a rational procedure for establishing causation between phenomena. Argument by analogy, which was popular in the ecclesiastical scholarly tradition, became much less acceptable in science (or "natural philosophy," as it was still called).
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The goals of the scientific method are uniform, but the method itself is not necessarily formalized among all branches of science. It is most generally expressed as a series of discrete steps, although the exact number and nature of the steps varies depending upon the source. The scientific method is not a recipe, but rather an ongoing cycle that is meant to be applied with intelligence, imagination, and creativity. Frequently, some of these steps will take place simultaneously, in a different order, or be repeated as the experiment is refined, but this is the most general and intuitive sequence:
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Scientific methods are impersonal. Thus, whatever one scientist is able to do qua scientist, any other scientist should be able to duplicate. When a person claims to measure or observe something by some purely subjective method, which others cannot duplicate, that person is not doing science. When scientists cannot duplicate the work of another scientist that is a clear sign that the scientist has erred either in design, methodology, observation, calculation, or calibration.
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