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Is this the scientific method?

Cainkane1

Philosopher
Cainkane1
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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.
 
Its not hard to fit theory to your data I guess.

Cainkane1 said:
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.
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Lets be lazy and lets go where others wrote it for us:

Define a question
Gather information and resources (observe)
Form an explanatory hypothesis
Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
Analyze the data
Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
Publish results
Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

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So the way I see it, yes and no.
 
Cainkane1 said:
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.
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Nope, if the test supports your idea then you look for another test you can run, and repeat the process until you find a test that contradicts your idea.
 
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Cainkane1 said:
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.
Click to expand...

yes and no

The scientific method is many things and involves different aspects, there can also be accidents that lead to research refinement as well and observational results.

And there are no actual facts in a theory, there is data which gives a value for the accuracy of the theory as it relates to the data.

So you can have two places where the SM starts, experiment and theory

-for example Rutherford has an alpha particle emitting object. his team then measures the scattering of the particles and finds that it totally has unexpected results. Theory was revised wholesale at that point.

-in other cases a theory drives experimentation, such as the series of theories that led to Fermi building the pile at U of C. Many theories put to the test and then refined to teh point where they are confirmed.

Then there are observational examples as well, works the same way.

-person measures relative motion of stars, concludes the Milky Way is much much larger than thought ( to accommodate the motions) they were not testing a theory, they studied something and found the theory was wrong

-theories about star formation have consequences that are then compared to the observed stars, theories that don't match the data are scrapped


And then there is technology which has as much to do with the advancement of science as anything.
 
Cainkane1 said:
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.
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Short answer, no. Why don't you look it up?
 
Cainkane1 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Send me $1,000.00 and I will do a scientific test on it to determine your answer.
 
Cainkane1 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Assuming this is a real question, a few modifications (some nomenclature, some not):

1. You look at the know facts. From these you draw up a working hypothesis (I prefer to format it as a question) just to better define the tests you hope to employ to test it. E.G. hypothesis: water will dissolve sodium chloride into a solution (I prefer to organize it as a question: will water dissolve sodium chloride into a solution?). The tricky part here is that beginners may assume that the idea is to create a hypothesis that you hope is correct. This is not true of science: you create a hypothesis just to better focus how to test it. One could just as easily start with the hypothesis that water will not dissolve sodium chloride. The idea is to prove or disprove the hypothesis, and one should not care which of the two happens. This neutrality is implied with the term hypothesis, but is more clear when phrasing it as a question (the reason I prefer this format).

2. Based on your hypothesis/question you design ways of testing it. You also include controls that help determine if the tests that you are using are specific to the hypothesis or if other explanations might account for any given test result. The test does not have to involve experiments per se but has to test a prediction from the hypothesis/question that was not available when creating the hypothesis/question. For example in the 1800s one might look at the physical appearance of animals and the fossil record and come up with a hypothesis/question that animals evolved into different species over time due to natural selection. Such a theory would predict that their DNA sequences would be related in a particular way something not known at all in the 1800s. When the DNA sequence was obtained much later, the test/prediction (that the sequences should be related in a particular way) was confirmed, helping to confirm the hypothesis/question. Same idea if one later finds a fossil organism predicted, but not yet discovered at the time of the original hypothesis. Not all tests need be in a lab or able to be physically performed after the hypothesis is made; they just have to reveal a fact predicted by the hypothesis but not yet known at the time of the hypothesis. Same idea with the bending of light as predicted by Einstein: massive celestial objects have bent light from the creation of the Universe; the discovery of this was predicted, but only discovered, after Einstein's hypothesis.

One way to look at this is one uses one set of data to create the hypothesis, but must test its predictions on a distinct set of data to see if the hypothesis also matches novel observations.

3. Based on the results of the tests one discards or modifies the hypothesis/question as necessary. Begin again at steps 1 or 2. Very few hypotheses remain totally unmodified after new observations are made. This reiteration results in ever more polished hypotheses that increasingly match what happens in the physical world.

4. Generally as the reiterated hypothesis is found to match more and more of the actual test results, it can become a generally recognized theory. But in science all theories (even those called laws) are never accepted as undoubtably completely true. The theory of gravity was considerably modified after more information, Einstein's equations, were added to it. The theory of evolution has been repeatedly modified as more and more information was acquired. Theories are not facts so much as the likely explanations of facts.
 
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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.
 
In my understanding as a hobby scientist. Scientific method:
1) observe
2) measure and record observations
3) hypothesize new understandings that can be gained from observations
4) Falsify above hypothesis to test if above understandings are correct
5) record all data from falsification efforts
6) Ask for confirmation from third party testing for repeatability and potentially new ways to falsify, alternative explanations, errors/limits of methodology etc...
7) Rinse and repeat for each detail of the observation, reducing each to its component parts.
8) Take each well understood part and put it back together as a whole, looking for emergent properties not found in the individual parts.
9) Rinse and repeat all of the above on the whole or combined parts of the whole.
10) Publish your findings assuming you found something that advances human knowledge. Publishing can also be done at various steps along the way if you are onto something others may think is important.

eta: Please note I am a hobbyist when it comes to science. I do all the above steps on my own work except publish, and I do not get paid for, nor am I formally trained as, a scientist beyond college level engineering courses.
 
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Cainkane1 said:
If your idea turns out to be right then your idea becomes a fact.
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But how does your idea turn out to be right?

I had the idea that there was an invisible dragon in my garage. I theorized that if this were so I should find scorch marks where it had been breathing fire. I examined the garage walls and found a scorch mark. So it turns out my idea was right - invisible dragons are a fact!

Or not. The scorch mark is a fact, but the invisible dragon is still only a hypothesis. A lot of things could have made that scorch mark...
 
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.

Sometimes your opponents will make these predictions for you. Then others shock the world by proving these predictions true.
 
Do not forget the white lab coat and pocket protector. Science cannot happen without them.
 
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