Template:Short description The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the scientific method:
Scientific method – body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on observable, empirical, reproducible, measurable evidence, and subject to the laws of reasoning.
Nature of scientific methodEdit
Template:History of scientific method
Elements of scientific methodEdit
ObservationEdit
HypothesisEdit
ExperimentEdit
- Laboratory
- Laboratory techniques
- Design of experiments
- Scientific control
- Natural experiment
- Observational study
- Field experiment
- Self-experimentation
- Placebo effect
TheoryEdit
PredictionEdit
- Prediction
- Bayesian inference – subjective use of statistical reasoning
- Deductive reasoning
- Retrodiction
Evaluation by scientific communityEdit
Scientific method conceptsEdit
Empirical methodsEdit
Use of statisticsEdit
- Uncomfortable science — Inference from a limited sample of data
- Exploratory data analysis
- Confirmatory data analysis
Paradigm changeEdit
Problem of inductionEdit
The problem of induction questions the logical basis of scientific statements.
- Inductive reasoning appears to lie at the core of the scientific method, yet also appears to be invalid.
- David Hume was the person who first pointed out the problem of induction.
- Karl Popper offered one solution, Falsifiability
Scientific creativityEdit
Deviations from the scientific methodEdit
Critique of scientific methodEdit
- Paul Feyerabend argued that the search for a definitive scientific method was misplaced and even counterproductive.
- Imre Lakatos attempted to bridge the gap between Popper and Kuhn.
- Sociology of scientific knowledge
- Scientism
Relationship of scientific method to technologyEdit
Aesthetics in the scientific methodEdit
History of scientific methodEdit
Template:HistOfScience Template:Main article
PublicationsEdit
- Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics
- Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine
- Roger Bacon's Opus Majus
- Francis Bacon's Novum Organum
- Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Persons influential in the development of scientific methodEdit
See alsoEdit
- Bayesian probability
- Epistemology
- Post-processual archaeology is a methodological curiosity from Archaeology.
- Structuralism
- Physical law