Editing Scientific method (section)

== Foundational principles ==
=== Honesty, openness, and falsifiability ===
{{See also|Scientific integrity|Open science}}

The unfettered principles of science are to strive for accuracy and the creed of honesty; openness already being a matter of degrees. Openness is restricted by the general rigour of scepticism. And of course the matter of non-science.

Smolin, in 2013, espoused ethical principles rather than giving any potentially limited definition of the rules of inquiry.{{efn-lg|name= ethicalPosition}} His ideas stand in the context of the scale of data–driven and [[big science]], which has seen increased importance of honesty and consequently [[reproducibility]]. His thought is that science is a community effort by those who have accreditation and are working within the [[Scientific community|community]]. He also warns against overzealous parsimony.

Popper previously took ethical principles even further, going as far as to ascribe value to theories only if they were falsifiable. Popper used the falsifiability criterion to demarcate a scientific theory from a theory like astrology: both "explain" observations, but the scientific theory takes the risk of making predictions that decide whether it is right or wrong:<ref name=Popper0>
{{cite book |author=Karl Raimund Popper |title=The logic of scientific discovery |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T76Zd20IYlgC&q=%22It+must+be+possible+for+an+empirical+scientific+system+to+be+refuted+by+experience%22&pg=PA18 |pages= 18, 280 |isbn=0415278430|publisher=Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group |year=2002 |edition=Reprint of translation of 1935 ''Logik der Forschung''}}
</ref><ref name=Popper1>
{{cite web |title=Science: Conjectures and refutations |author=Karl Popper |url=http://worthylab.tamu.edu/courses_files/popper_conjecturesandrefutations.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130909021911/http://worthylab.tamu.edu/courses_files/popper_conjecturesandrefutations.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2013-09-09 |publisher=Texas A&M University The motivation & cognition interface lab |access-date=2013-01-22 }} This lecture by Popper was first published as part of the book ''Conjectures and Refutations'' and is linked [http://worthylab.tamu.edu/Courses.html here].
</ref>

{{blockquote|"Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the game of science."
|Karl Popper|''The Logic of Scientific Discovery (2002 [1935])''}}

=== Theory's interactions with observation ===

{{Anchor|th-v-obs}}Science has limits. Those limits are usually deemed to be answers to questions that aren't in science's domain, such as faith. Science has other limits as well, as it seeks to make true statements about reality.{{sfnp|Gauch Jr|2002|loc=ch. 1}} The nature of [[truth]] and the discussion on how scientific statements relate to reality is best left to the article on the [[philosophy of science]] here. More immediately topical limitations show themselves in the observation of reality.

[[File:PositronDiscovery.png|thumb|220px|This [[cloud chamber]] photograph is the first observational evidence of [[positron]]s, 2 August 1932; interpretable only through prior theory.<ref name="Anderson 1933 pp. 491–494">{{cite journal | last=Anderson | first=Carl D. | title=The Positive Electron | journal=Physical Review | volume=43 | issue=6 | date=15 March 1933 | issn=0031-899X | doi=10.1103/PhysRev.43.491 | pages=491–494| bibcode=1933PhRv...43..491A }}<!--credit:[[c:File:PositronDiscovery.png]]--></ref>]]

It is the natural limitations of scientific inquiry that there is no pure observation as theory is required to interpret empirical data, and observation is therefore influenced by the observer's conceptual framework.<ref name="Hanson1958"/> As science is an unfinished project, this does lead to difficulties. Namely, that false conclusions are drawn, because of limited information.

An example here are the experiments of Kepler and Brahe, used by Hanson to illustrate the concept. Despite observing the same sunrise the two scientists came to different conclusions—their [[intersubjectivity]] leading to differing conclusions. [[Johannes Kepler]] used [[Tycho Brahe]]'s method of observation, which was to project the image of the Sun on a piece of paper through a pinhole aperture, instead of looking directly at the Sun. He disagreed with Brahe's conclusion that total eclipses of the Sun were impossible because, contrary to Brahe, he knew that there were historical accounts of total eclipses. Instead, he deduced that the images taken would become more accurate, the larger the aperture—this fact is now fundamental for optical system design.{{efn|name= Kepler1604 }} Another historic example here is the [[discovery of Neptune]], credited as being found via mathematics because previous observers didn't know what they were looking at.<ref name="Lequeux 2021 pp. 159–183">{{cite book | last=Lequeux | first=James | title=Neptune: From Grand Discovery to a World Revealed | chapter=Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier: Predictions Leading to Discovery | series=Historical & Cultural Astronomy | publisher=Springer International Publishing | publication-place=Cham | year=2021 | isbn=978-3-030-54217-7 | issn=2509-310X | doi=10.1007/978-3-030-54218-4_5 | pages=159–183}}</ref>

=== Empiricism, rationalism, and more pragmatic views ===

Scientific endeavour can be characterised as the pursuit of truths about the natural world or as the elimination of doubt about the same. The former is the direct construction of explanations from empirical data and logic, the latter the reduction of potential explanations.{{efn-lg|"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense." — [[Carl Sagan]]<ref>{{cite book | last=Sagan | first=Carl | title=The Demon-Haunted World | date=1995 | author-link=Carl Sagan | title-link=The Demon-Haunted World}}<!--credit to q:Science--></ref>}} It was established [[#th-v-obs|above]] how the interpretation of empirical data is theory-laden, so neither approach is trivial.

The ubiquitous element in the scientific method is [[empiricism]], which holds that knowledge is created by a process involving observation; scientific theories generalize observations. This is in opposition to stringent forms of [[rationalism]], which holds that knowledge is created by the human intellect; later clarified by Popper to be built on prior theory.{{sfnp|Godfrey-Smith|2003|pp=19-74}} The scientific method embodies the position that reason alone cannot solve a particular scientific problem; it unequivocally refutes claims that [[revelation]], political or religious [[dogma]], appeals to tradition, commonly held beliefs, common sense, or currently held theories pose the only possible means of demonstrating truth.<ref name= truthSought4sake /><ref name="reasonsFirstRule">{{cite book |last=Peirce |first=Charles S. |title=Collected Papers |year=1899 |series=v. 1 |at=paragraphs 135–140 |chapter=F.R.L. [First Rule of Logic] |quote=...&nbsp;in order to learn, one must desire to learn&nbsp;... |access-date=2012-01-06 |chapter-url=http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120106071421/http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm |archive-date=January 6, 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1877,<ref name="Fixation" /> [[C. S. Peirce]] characterized inquiry in general not as the pursuit of truth ''per se'' but as the struggle to move from irritating, inhibitory doubts born of surprises, disagreements, and the like, and to reach a secure belief, the belief being that on which one is prepared to act. His [[Pragmatism|pragmatic]] views framed scientific inquiry as part of a broader spectrum and as spurred, like inquiry generally, by actual doubt, not mere verbal or "hyperbolic doubt", which he held to be fruitless.{{efn|1="What one does not in the least doubt one should not pretend to doubt; but a man should train himself to doubt," said Peirce in a brief intellectual autobiography.<ref>{{cite book |contributor-last=Ketner |contributor-first=Kenneth Laine |year=2009 |contribution=Charles Sanders Peirce: Interdisciplinary Scientist |last=Peirce |first=Charles S. |editor-last=Bisanz |editor-first=Elize |title=The Logic of Interdisciplinarity |publisher=Akademie Verlag |place=Berlin}}</ref> Peirce held that actual, genuine doubt originates externally, usually in surprise, but also that it is to be sought and cultivated, "provided only that it be the weighty and noble metal itself, and no counterfeit nor paper substitute".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Peirce |first=Charles S. |date=October 1905 |title=Issues of Pragmaticism |magazine=The Monist |volume=XV |number=4 |pages=481–499, see [https://archive.org/stream/monistquart15hegeuoft#page/484/mode/1up p. 484], and [https://archive.org/stream/monistquart15hegeuoft#page/491/mode/1up p. 491]}} Reprinted in ''Collected Papers'' v. 5, paragraphs 438–463, see 443 and 451.</ref>}} This "hyperbolic doubt" Peirce argues against here is of course just another name for [[Cartesian doubt]] associated with [[René Descartes]]. It is a methodological route to certain knowledge by identifying what can't be doubted.

A strong formulation of the scientific method is not always aligned with a form of [[empiricism]] in which the empirical data is put forward in the form of experience or other abstracted forms of knowledge as in current scientific practice the use of [[scientific modelling]] and reliance on abstract typologies and theories is normally accepted. In 2010, [[Stephen Hawking|Hawking]] suggested that physics' models of reality should simply be accepted where they prove to make useful predictions. He calls the concept [[model-dependent realism]].<ref name="Hawking"/>