Entry 121 — Definition of Scientific Account
Many of my thoughts and hypotheses keep getting hammered for being unscientific, including my poetics (which I consider definitely scientific, which is why so many poets hate it). So, here once again, although newly formed, is my definition of what a scientific account of some aspect of reality is:
An account of some aspect of reality is scientific if it satisfies the following four criteria:
1. It contradicts no law of nature held by the consensus of intelligent, informed observers.
2. Data accepted by the consensus above as factual can be shown by standard logic directly to support it.
3. No data accepted by the consensus above as factual can be shown by standard logic directly to refute it.
4. It is falsifiable.
Note: satisfying the four criteria only makes an account scientific; it doesn’t necessarily make it valid or of any importance. Moreover, it will always be temporary since new data can always show up.
Because many highly regarded accounts of aspects of nature do not satisfy my four criteria but are accepted by a great deal of experts in the fields they are concerned with, such as physics’s big bang theory, which some facts contradict (the ones requiring the further hypothesis of the existence of unobserved “dark matter”) and which breaks certain laws of nature (the ones requiring such certain laws of nature to be different when the big bang occurred), I also have a definition of what I call “Near-Scientific Accounts.”
An account of some aspect of reality is near-scientific if it satisfies the following four criteria:
1. If it contradicts a law of nature held by the consensus of intelligent, informed observers, the same consensus agrees that some end-around (like dark matter) is plausible.
2. Data accepted by the consensus above as factual can be shown by standard logic directly to support it.
3. If some data accepted as factual can be shown by standard logic directly to refute it, experts agree that some end-around is plausible.
4. It is falsifiable.
An account of some aspect of reality that is neither scientific nor near-scientific is unscientific.
Okay, in a few hours I should be an a Greyhound bus on my way to South Carolina. I hope to post at least once from there. If not, expect a new entry around April Fools’ Day.
Glad you are here, Bob. Good luck on your VENTURE to SC. I hope it’s good. I love science, but not quite so much as I love your work. There you have it. Infinitely verifiable
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You may be interested in the following URL: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml which explains the steps involved in the scientific method. My point being that a scientific account of something is only arrived at through proper use of the scientific method, as out lined in the link. (That link is simpler than the Wikipedia explanation or the Caltech intro to Scientific method:
http://web.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/jarrett/talks/LiU/scien_method/AppendixE.html.
Connie, without really thinking about it (I’m kinda tired right now) I would say that probably following the standard scientific method would result in a scientific account of something, but I claim (violently!) that one can come up with a scientific account of something without an experiment–or, at least without performing an experiment. That is, one can use one’s empirical knowledge to construct a scientific account of something, with one’s empirical knowledge including knowledge of various experiments already performed, informally as well as formally. For instance, I can theorize that men get excited at football games without hooking up ten thousand football fans in a football stadium to blood pressure machines. I think that the obsession with experimentation in science has held it back, and that experimentation rarely leads to anything very significant. Einstein, I think, did few or no experiments.
But thanks for the interest!
–Bob (late with this because only today finding out this blog was getting comments and how to deal with them)
The (violently!) remark suggests you won’t change your mind. Einsitein actully perfomed “thought experiments.” Mathematical proofs and theoretical physics are different, but in the fields of biological and physical science, the only way to confirm a theory is through experimentation. And the development of pennicillin, vaccines and cancer chemotherapy, to name a few, are indeed significant. Regarding your football example, you actually followed the scientific method by hypothesizing that men get excited, testing that hypothesis by reviewing previous data and using observable criteria (instead of BP) to measure excitement (eg., any memory of a game where men stood up and cheered).
Hi, Connie.
> The (violently!) remark suggests you won’t change your mind.
It does, but the suggestion is wrong. That I tend to violently defend certain of my views doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind about them.
> Einstein actually perfomd “thought experiments.”
Sure, but I was referring to physical experiments.
> Mathematical proofs and theoretical physics are different, but in the fields of biological and physical science, the only way to confirm a theory is through experimentation.
That would depend on your definition of experiment. I claim that formal experiments are often unneeded, and by “experiment,” I mean formal physical experiment. Not that such experiments are not often extremely useful, and in some cases necessary. But, just as one can construct a scientific account of something without experiments by basing it on one’s experience of the past, and one’s thoughts about that, one can confirm a hypothesis (which is different from a scientific account) by checking it against the past and thinking about it. Also by further investigation, which is similar to experimentation but not really experimentation, for me. For instance, I hypothesize certain brain mechanisms. One needn’t set up an experiment to find out if they exist, one need only keep investigating the brain physically, or even research old investigations. I admit that this is hair-splitting. Obviously, if your scientific account is of something not available to normal sensory experience, you need to experiment or do something close to it to validate it.
In many fields, particularly what you might call macroscopic psychology, the experiments have been done in the real world. We don’t have to do a formal experiment to find out if children will go to a man handing out free ice cream cones on a hot day or to a man handing out religious pamphlets.
> And the development of penicillin, vaccines and cancer chemotherapy, to name a few, are indeed significant. Regarding your football example, you actually followed the scientific method by hypothesizing that men get excited, testing that hypothesis by reviewing previous data and using observable criteria (instead of BP) to measure excitement (eg., any memory of a game where men stood up and cheered).
Right. No formal experimentation necessary. Empirical knowledge necessary.
thanks for your response, Bob