Is this the scientific method?

[fuelair]

You get an idea. You gather the facts. You put these facts to work in a laboratory or other environment and test your theory. If your idea truns out to be right then your idea becomes a fact.

Depends. You find a (science related ) problem, You research what real scientist in the field of the problem have to say about it, You develop a hypothesis that may explain (based on the previous) the activity/process/function... you wish to study, You set up experiment(s) designed properly to clearly verify your hypothesis is correct or incorrect.
IF your hypothesis is shown to be correct you publish the details of your research and experiment(s). Others in the field will eventually read your work and if it is important will make suggestions or better duplicate it to see if they get the results you did. You will, after all that, be the hero, the meh! or the goat depending!!!!!!

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Does this offer also include a prayer cloth and a bottle of Holy Water from Sweden?

No. But I can give you a handkerchief I have "blessed" (may be made from tissue paper) and a vial of well succussed water from Niagara Falls.

 

[Crossbow]

Send me $50 and I will take a Wild Assed Guess for you AND bless you.

Sure thing!

After I get my $1,000.00 dollars I will be sure to send you $50.00.

 

[Dancing David]

What I like about these debates that at the end of day everyone leaves with what s/he came in with and the world spins the same. Theory, fact, scientific method .. important to know, from like secondary school.

maybe you, I learn a lot from these discussion

 

[crescent]

You should add in
1. If your hypothesis is correct what predictions would it make that conventional thinking would say would not happen?
2. You should do your best to attempt to prove your hypothesis wrong. If you fail then either your hypothesis is correct, you are not trying hard enough or it is correct under the conditions which you are testing. It may not be correct under other conditions.

To add to that, the hypothesis must be stated in a way that it can be proven wrong if it actually is wrong. It must be falsifiable.

I was always taught to have two hypotheses: The experimental one, and the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is almost just a statement of what is currently believed to be true, or the currently accepted theory. You might not be able to truly prove the experimental hypothesis is correct, but you can prove the current state of knowledge or theory is wrong. Unless your experiment fails to disprove the null hypothesis - it fails to show that the currently accepted knowledge or theory is wrong.

Even then, it does not mean that current knowledge/theory is right or the experimental hypothesis wrong, just that this particular experiment failed to disprove the current theory. A better study design might still disprove the null hypothesis, or you might find out that you misunderstood the current theory in the first place.