Talk:Scientific method

Stemwedel quote

for editor convenience, I have retrospectively prefixed here the quotation whose addition is being challenged under WP:BRD:

The big difference Popper identifies between science and pseudo-science is a difference in attitude. While a pseudo-science is set up to look for evidence that supports its claims, Popper says, science is set up to challenge its claims and look for evidence that might prove it false. In other words, pseudo-science seeks confirmations and science seeks falsifications.

— Janet D. Stemwedel, Scientific American

Discussion

Binksternet left a message on my talk page that said: Please do not add commentary, your own point of view, or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles, as you did to Scientific method. Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and breaches the formal tone expected in an encyclopedia. Binksternet's response is puzzling, as it refers to this edit in which I did not add anything to the article—there is no "commentary" or "personal analysis" to be found!

As for my justification of the removal of the Stemwedel quote from the beginning of the "Overview" section: I said in the edit summary: science may also seek confirmations—see, e.g., the footnotes in Critical rationalism#Variations, such as "Producing evidence" (Bunge 1983). I will quote the footnote on Mario Bunge to which I referred:

• Bunge, Mario (1983). "Producing evidence". Epistemology & methodology II: understanding the world. Treatise on basic philosophy. Vol. 6. Dordrecht; Boston: D. Reidel. pp. 59–113 (70). doi:10.1007/978-94-015-6921-7_2. ISBN 902771634X. OCLC 9759870. Critical rationalism (e.g. Popper, 1959) agrees that experience is a test of theories (its only concern) but claims that only negative evidence counts (against), for positive evidence is too easy to come by. True, unsuccessful attempts to refute a theory (or discredit a proposal or an artifact) are more valuable than mere empirical confirmation. However, (a) the most general theories are not refutable, although they are indirectly confirmable by turning them into specific theories upon adjoining them specific hypotheses (Bunge, 1973b); (b) true (or approximately true) predictions are not that cheap, as shown by the predictive barrenness of pseudoscience; (c) positive evidence for the truth of an idea or the efficiency of a proposal, procedure, or artifact, does count: thus the US Food and Drug Administration will rightly demand positive evidence for the efficiency [efficacy] of a drug before permitting its marketing.

Earlier Bunge had argued:

• Bunge, Mario (1973). "Testability today". Method, model, and matter. Synthese library. Vol. 44. Dordrecht; Boston: Reidel. pp. 27–43. doi:10.1007/978-94-010-2519-5_2. ISBN 9027702527. OCLC 613670. Quite apart from their historical merits, is either of the two criteria [of science—confirmability versus falsifiability] actually satisfied by today's science? Have they withstood four decades of momentous advances in pure and applied science? This is the problem of the present investigation. The outcome of it will be negative: neither confirmability nor refutability is either necessary or sufficient for every single component of science. Nor will any other single trait do: science is too complex an object to be characterizable by a single property.

These quotes from Bunge refute the claim in the Stemwedel quote that "pseudo-science seeks confirmations and science seeks falsifications", which is a far too simplistic characterization of science, as the quotes from Bunge indicate. As I said in another edit summary reverting the addition of the same quote to another article, the Stemwedel quote seems to conflate falsifiability as a demarcation criterion with falsifications—a hypothesis can be falsifiable and yet still be confirmed/corroborated, and it's fine for scientists to seek confirmations/corroborations as long as they use sufficiently severe tests.

Even critical rationalist philosopher John W. N. Watkins emphasized that science involves confirmations/corroborations:

• Watkins, John W. N. (December 1995). "Book review of: Critical rationalism: a restatement and defence, by David Miller". British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 46 (4): 610–616. doi:10.1093/bjps/46.4.610. JSTOR 687902. (2) A main component of Popper's methodology was his theory of corroboration (see the concluding chapter and appendix *ix of his [1959]); corroborations are what ultimately govern the rational acceptance of theories. This disappears without trace in Miller's 'restatement'. In his index there are six entries against 'corroboration', five of which refer to places where an author is being quoted or reported. The sixth comes in the course of an examination of my [1984]. I had tried to give a fresh answer to the question, 'Why do corroborations matter?' Miller writes: 'The answer is that corroboration doesn't matter' (p. 120). (3) Popper had a horror of anything like rationality-scepticism. He insisted that a theory's being currently the best corroborated, while not justifying the theory, does justify a preference for it over its rivals. He may not have kept these two kinds of justification as separate as he should have done, but his philosophy allows there to be sufficient reasons for accepting one theory as better than its rivals at the present time.

Or if those quotes aren't sufficient, take Graham Oddie's summary of why falsification without confirmation/corroboration is insufficient:

• Oddie, Graham (2001). "Truth, verification, verisimilitude, and evidence: philosophical aspects". In Smelser, Neil J.; Baltes, Paul B. (eds.). International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences. Vol. 23. Amsterdam; New York: Elsevier. pp. 15932–15937. doi:10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/01014-7. ISBN 9780080430768. OCLC 47869490. Pseudoscientific theories (Popper's examples were psychoanalysis and astrology) are replete with 'confirming instances.' Everything that happens appears to confirm them only because they rule nothing out. Popper argued that genuine theories must forever remain conjectures. But science is still rational, because we can submit falsifiable theories to severe tests. If they fail, we weed them out. If they survive? Then we submit them to more tests, until they too fail, as they almost assuredly will. There are three serious problems with falsificationism. First, it does not account for the apparent epistemic value of confirmations. The hardline falsificationist must maintain that the appearance is an illusion. Second, it cannot explain why it is rational to act on the unrefuted theories. Confidence born of experimental success reeks of inductivism. Third, pessimism about the enterprise of science seems obligatory. Although truth is the goal of inquiry, the best we can manage is to pronounce a refuted theory false.

In summary, the Stemwedel quote is not a good summary of scientific method or of demarcation of science from pseudoscience. That is why I removed the quote. Biogeographist (talk) 23:25, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

"Simplistic" material has its purpose. Popper made his simplistic pronouncement for a purpose. Why can we not keep the Popper quote followed by defining context from Oddie and Watkins? We can excite the black-or-white reader and the shades-of-grey reader at the same time. Binksternet (talk) 23:34, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

It is a good quote taken from a well known scientific journal. However, it gives the impression that there is no debate about what distinguishes science from non science. Clearly, our personal perspective is irrelevant, but since Biogeographist gave his view, I will add mine: Popper found a good criterion when taken in its proper context, but clearly one cannot reduce science to falsifiability and I don't think Popper could have reasonably claimed that out of a proper context. This is in fact a key point. Every thing we say, always depends on a context. Nothing is universally true. This is something known since the ancient Greece: every truth depends on a previous truth. This also applies to the falsifiability criterion. Dominic Mayers (talk) 00:46, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

The reason that I added that quote is because the article as it stands is very dense and almost legalistic. The quotation is clear, concise and accessible to non-specialists. It is entirely opposite. Biogeographist's response merely confirms my view of the need for such a clear statement because it is written in the same legalistic tone as the article: it is not wrong but it is not helpful. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:04, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree 100% with Dominic Mayers about the importance of context and about the high value of falsifiability within a proper context, and I'm certainly not opposed to JMF's goal of making the article more readable, but I don't think the Stemwedel quotation helps, for the reasons already stated. Perhaps you can take inspiration from Stemwedel's article and from this discussion to craft a new edit that meets your goals while avoiding these objections. Biogeographist (talk) 02:08, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

By the way, it is mistaken that Stemwedel's article is from a "scientific journal" as Dominic said; it is really a blog post. The blogs at https://blogs.scientificamerican.com are mostly not published in the magazine. I don't see anything wrong with the blog post as far as it goes, but as Stemwedel said, she's just explaining Popper's demarcation criterion, not claiming that it's the only criterion or that there is no debate about demarcation. In fact, she wrote: "before we get into how real science (and real non-science) might depart from Sir Karl's image of things, I think it's important to look more closely at the distinction he's trying to draw." But she never comes back to "how real science (and real non-science) might depart from Sir Karl's image of things". An interesting article that was published ten years after Stemwedel's blog post and that you may want to read for more recent views on the demarcation problem is: Hirvonen, Ilmari; Karisto, Janne (June 2022). "Demarcation without dogmas". Theoria. 88 (3): 701–720. doi:10.1111/theo.12395. Biogeographist (talk) 03:38, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

This last paper only confirms that there are still debates about what distinguishes science from non science. Also, any review paper in philosophy is still only representing a point of view, not the truth about the current state of the art in philosophy, and must be treated as such in Wikipedia. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

That supports my view that Biogeographist is being excessively purist about this. Here, and especially in the pseudo-science article, we need a clear, concise and accessible statement of what makes real science different from nonsense. If a reader follows a link in a general article, they should not be confronted with a philosophical treatise. The advantage of using the Stemwedel quote is that it provides just such a statement but because it is a quote, we don't have to qualify it extensively as we would if it were in Wikivoice. In all honesty, I can't help feeling that Biogeographist's concerns, while valid, are about edge cases. When the topic is something clear-cut like crackpot cures for CV19, then Popper's exposition is very broadly representative of mainstream scientific consensus going back to Bacon. WP:Think of the reader who is likely to be someone who has little or no scientific education. We don't have to impress professional scientists who won't be reading this article in any search for knowledge. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:53, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I just want to insist that Popper always spoke in a context. He often criticized people, because they took his statements out of context. In particular, even the falsifiability criterion have to be understood within science as a problem solving activity. When Popper says that falsifiability is sufficient and necessary, it is within that context. In other words, Popper has never claimed that science does not have the positive goal of solving problems. The idea that Popper would have claimed that the goal of science is not to solve problems, but only to make falsifiable statements, is ridiculous. Yet, there are some to criticize Popper as if he had made that claim. I say that because the quote could lead to such a misunderstanding when it concludes "pseudo-science seeks confirmations and science seeks falsifications" out of context. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:49, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with everything Dominic Mayers has said so far.

In the introduction of the article by Hirvonen & Karisto that I mentioned above, there is a helpful distinction between two types of demarcation, general and specific: "General demarcation is about providing blunt instruments for laypersons." But specific demarcation is also necessary, they said, because: "Explaining in detail why some instance of pseudoscience is pseudoscience may demand in-depth knowledge about the field of inquiry that it deals with. This could require one to answer such questions as: What kind of methods qualified scientists use in the field? Why and how do these practices differ from the pseudoscientific ones? What scientific claims do pseudoscientific theses contradict?"

I would say that JMF's example above of "crackpot cures for CV19" is a case where science communicators would need to apply what Hirvonen & Karisto call specific demarcation. The general confirmation/falsification heuristic wouldn't be specific enough; to refute CV19 pseudoscience you would need to discuss some of the in-depth background knowledge about the field that a particular CV19 pseudotheory ignores.

So, I expect there is a way to insert Stemwedel's point into the article while emphasizing that it is a general demarcation heuristic that will not be sufficient for all contexts. Biogeographist (talk) 15:57, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Just to add that my contribution here is not at all an endorsement of the article in its current state. I had a quick look at the article and this quote was the least of its issues. It's full of naive personal opinions that reflect what the average scientists with no formation on philosophy would think. There is a difference between presenting well thought philosophical content in a way that the average people can understand and presenting what average people think. Having to do the former should not be an excuse to do the latter. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

A weak version of Popper's conjecture and refutation would work for the article, I think. Something like Carl Sagan should be both accessible as well as true:

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

This would restructure the article away from the sequence of elements as such and to something like

• Characterizations
  • problem statement/question
  • Preliminary data/definitions
  • Hypothesis/conjecture
• Scrutiny
  • suitable test/experiment/refutation/confirmation
  • Peer review
  • Confirmation

JackTheSecond (talk) 12:21, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

@JackTheSecond: This section is an old discussion of an edit from over 3 months ago. If you are proposing a general restructuring of part of the article, that issue would deserve its own new section at the bottom of this page. If you are proposing putting the Sagan quote in place of the Stemwedel quote as an epigraph to the Overview section, I don't think an epigraph is helpful. If the ideas in the Sagan quote are important enough and uncontroversial enough to include, then just write them out in the article text in Wikipedia's voice. Also, consider that the lead paragraph of this article emphasizes observation, which is not mentioned in the Sagan quote. By the way, you marked this recent edit of yours as minor but it was not; you should review the Help:Minor edit guideline, which says that any edit that adds or removes content (apart from spelling corrections & formatting changes) should be not marked as minor. Biogeographist (talk) 21:13, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I will do that. -- Also, I seem to have misinterpreted what "content" is. JackTheSecond (talk) 21:55, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

References

State and scope of the article March 2024

I iterated this post several times now as I worked through the article (and hopefully managed to make useful changes).

The only question I have remaining is on the general scope of the article. Several sections (Scientific inquiry, Philosophy, and Relationship with mathematics) seem they are very much their own thing and, to me, well-outside the scope of the article.

Are they here simply because of the high article traffic and to give people jumping off points to further reading? And have they been justified previously?

JackTheSecond (talk) 22:42, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your updates. The sections you mention used to have extensive coverage in this article. They relied on the thinking of Charles Sanders Peirce, based on the thousands of posts to his papers. User:The Tetrast was called to lead a Peirce website, and stepped away from this article a dozen years ago. User:Jon Awbrey (see Template talk:Infobox philosopher/Archive 1) and User:Prof. Carl Hewitt also contributed to the scope of this article, and to the encyclopedia.

In the last decade, the rise of proof assistants is directly traceable to Peirce, Wittgenstein, Emil Post, Alonzo Church, etc. These influences (as documented in the arXiv.org and Internet Archive) show that mathematical method and scientific method have intertwined since the 1870s. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 09:28, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, those are literal lifetimes of history... I think the most actual contribution beyond a copy edit I could give the article would be to introduce an {Empty section} on 'Modern methodology and the scientific method', as the article seems to be quite light on things past the 1960s.

Another suggestion I have is to write a 'DNA Experiment' header for the 'Confirmation' header, that gets into how DNA research moved on since. JackTheSecond (talk) 11:00, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Direction of the 'History' section.

This 2018 diff shows that the vision for the 'History' section of the article had been to give a brief overview with a link to the article 'History of scientific method'. It has now grown and there should probably be a conversation about what to do with it and the 'Theory' section.

• Should the section keep growing? In my opinion the main article should have a complete (even if brief) History section and that means expansion at the moment. (Which is why I introduced sectioning, to encourage and organise; even if I don't know if the focus is entirely correct.)
• Is the heavy use of notes justified? And is it implemented in the best way... is perhaps the better question.
• The 'Theory' section I introduced should probably be moved or even merged elsewhere. I just didn't know what to do with one particular paragraph formerly in the 'History' section and wrote an introduction to a fitting section. ~

JackTheSecond (talk) 19:42, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I added an anchor to characterization; credit for this term is due to user:Banno back in 2004. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 11:24, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Lead sentence

The further I get into the topic of the article, the more I come around to the idea that the first sentence of the lead section should not read 'empirical' and even more so not 'empirical method'. My arguments are:

• The empirical method is its own, much more limited, concept.
• Empirical implies empiricism, which is what the scientific method is built on, but far, far from being descriptive of it.
• Most openly available sources do not actually use 'empirical'. Source 2 and Britannica both do not; The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on "Scientific Method" does not. (Source 3 does).
• And, above all, that Thomas Kuhn was right when he wrote about the scientific method being a 'social framework', as written about in the article already here (second paragraph).

The previous (quite high-quality) discussion that added the term was started by User:Markworthen and is archived here: 2018.

What I would change the opening line to (without the brackets):

1. The scientific method is the sociological framework that has characterized the sciences since the 17th century. (Thomas Kuhn)

2. The scientific method is a framework for procedure that has characterized the sciences since the scientific revolution of the 17th century.(Thomas Kuhn + source 2)

3. The scientific method is the sociology of science. It is not a sequence of steps, or elements – even if this article, as many educators do, will section itself such in order to give structure to explanation. (the flippant version)

4. The scientific method is a method of procedure that characterized the sciences since the scientific revolution of the 17th century. (source 2, verbatim)

I like 1 most, because the way Kuhn's definition works allows for other interpretations of it as well—no matter if one's views on it are informed by Dewey, Feyerabend or anyone in between. JackTheSecond (talk) 23:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

You have a point. I think the scientific method is generally a method of induction and is metaphysical. I am thinking of Francis Bacon and going back to medievals like Roger Bacon. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:39, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any way to avoid the empirical aspect of what this article is talking about: the article is not talking about purely formal a priori knowledge. There is an empirical aspect.

I don't think it's true that Empirical implies empiricism (where empiricism refers to a particular epistemological view opposed to, e.g., rationalism) as JackTheSecond said above. Empirical can refer to the experiential or experimental aspect of a procedure, as opposed to, e.g., guessing or looking up data in an actuarial table. And, again, that empirical aspect is central to what this article is talking about.

Saying that the scientific method is sociology or sociological seems badly misleading in at least one respect: physicists, for example, are not doing sociology when they use scientific method. You seem to mean that it is social, but that property does not differentiate it from most other human activities.

For all the stated reasons, I don't see any one of the proposed sentences as an improvement over the status quo (which is not to say that that the current lead sentence could not be improved). Biogeographist (talk) 15:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

The scientific method is a set of principles and procedures to acquire knowledge by careful observation; inducing from those observations falsifiable hypotheses; and in most, but not all disciplines, designing experiments to test those hypotheses; refining hypotheses based on experimental findings; and inferring tentative truths from the observations and experiments. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 17:19, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Good point - empirical method is imprecise and not consistent with the article as a whole. How about replacing it with scholarly method? Scholarly method is not controversial (I don't think) and is consistent with the article as a whole. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 17:37, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

A couple of suggestions to play with:

• The scientific method is a scholarly method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized scientific inquiry since the 17th century, albeit with much debate regarding how scientific discovery actually occurs.
• The scientific method, a systematic approach to acquiring knowledge, has been a hallmark of scientific inquiry since the 17th century. However, there is considerable debate about the actual process of scientific discovery.

Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 17:53, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I think while scholarly method does a good job of putting the method into context, it doesn't do a good job actually saying what the 'scientific' method is. JackTheSecond (talk) 19:00, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

@Markworthen: If you are responding to me, as your indentation implies, then I have to clarify that I did not say that empirical method is imprecise and not consistent with the article as a whole. I was defending the use of the word "empirical", which I consider to be an essential differentiator of science as factual knowledge from purely formal a priori knowledge, on the one hand, and wildly imaginative guessing on the other hand: this article is not primarily about either of the latter two cognitive modes. Scientific method for factual knowledge is more than only empirical, but the empirical is an essential aspect.

Scholarly method isn't quite right because scholars of the the arts, for example, are scholars but do not necessarily use scientific method. Furthermore, dictionaries often indicate, and rightly in my view, that the term "scholar" is especially associated with the humanities (which, of course, is not to say that there is no scholarship in science).

Something like your second proposed sentence would be better if it retained the word "empirical", for the reasons I mentioned above, e.g.: "The scientific method is an empirical and systematic approach to acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century." Biogeographist (talk) 18:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Biogeographist - Sorry, I got the indention wrong. I meant to reply to JackTheSecond. I fixed the indention just now. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 16:54, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

You may be right about Kuhn and sociology not being a better solution. It is confusing, even if the point I was trying to make still stands (to me) that 'empirical' does not do enough. The only other leads I was able to come up with were the historical approach:

The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that emphasises rational thought. It first gained prominence during the scientific revolution as an expansion on early empiricism, and has characterized the development of the sciences since. It is often characterized by systematic observation and experimentation, reasoned thought, and the formation and testing of hypotheses.

and the perhaps more radical idea of replacing everything with what's currently called 'Overview'... the section has both the cohesion as well as the nuance required. (And we may just have to embrace its length...) JackTheSecond (talk) 19:37, 20 March 2024 (UTC) edit:@Biogeographist JackTheSecond (talk) 19:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

This proposal for the lead sentences looks fine to me in general. Biogeographist (talk) 19:54, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

JackTheSecond - Looks good to me too. Thanks for working hard on this. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 16:57, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Another comment about one of JackTheSecond's initial claims above: Most openly available sources do not actually use 'empirical'. But all of the cited sources use one or more of the terms 'empirical', 'observing', 'observation', 'measurement', 'experiment', which are variations on the same empirical aspect. Biogeographist (talk) 19:33, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. That I feel is an unfair characterization of what I was saying. Calling it 'empirical method' is saying that the method is and empirical one. The other sources all say that the 'empirical aspect' as you called it is 'one of' the aspects. JackTheSecond (talk) 19:47, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

If there is an empirical aspect, and there is, then I think it's justifiable to characterize it as an empirical method, but there may be other ways to say it. In any case, I think your latest proposal looks good. Biogeographist (talk) 19:54, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

---

I've gotten around to User:Markworthen's idea of icluding 'scholarly method'. It's a neat way of putting things into context and avoids stating a definitive definition (that doesn't seem to have a scientific consensus anyway). New stab at a complete lead section (kind of deleting Popper; the inclusion seemed unduly selective // potential issue is that the second sentence of the first paragraph might count as copyvio from the (referenced) Stanford Encyclopedia; to me, it seems generic enough not to~):

The scientific method is a scholarly method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of the sciences since at least the 17th century. It is often characterized by systematic observation and experimentation, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the formation and testing of hypotheses and theories.

Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, the underlying process is frequently the same. The process in the scientific method involves making hypothetical explanations, deriving predictions from the hypotheses as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions.

Though the scientific method is often presented as a fixed sequence of steps, it represents rather a set of general principles. Not all steps take place in every scientific inquiry (nor to the same degree), and they are not always in the same order.

JackTheSecond (talk) 17:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess I mostly just didn't understand why falsificationism and scepticism were given preference. JackTheSecond (talk) 18:08, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

FWIW some notes on the above conversation:

• I do not like the word scholarly being given such prominence. Apart from being too original I think it implies that science is academic, and that what is academic is scientific. Scientific method is not a professional qualification.
• Scientific method is clearly not something which applies to all science, for example classical science, or any modern science which still works like classical science. It is mordern, and it is methodical/systematic.
• If you ask what it is systematic a long discussion is possible, but since the beginning of modern science all versions have been cautious of human bias, including most types of metaphysical explanations. So it is sceptical, and it involves as little as possible meaphysics. So I support the mention of scepticism and I would question any proposal to call it metaphysical in any simple sense.
• FWIW the minimalistic metaphysics which modern science can not avoid is the idea that there are laws of nature. But these only imply consistent underlying patterns of causation, which do not change from one day to the next. By definition this patterns which describe nature are not elements of nature and so they are metaphysical instead of physical. This type of thing is not what most people think of when they think of metaphysics.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:30, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
• Although induction and metaphysics can't be avoided modern scientific method tries to take it cues from empircal evidences, observations. So I don't really see a problem with saying it is empirical. Someone like Aristotle could do science without being empirical but he was not using scientific method.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:04, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• I fully agree not to call it anything akin to 'metaphysical' or any version of the arguments on 'social constructs'. They are not useful; and they tend to be unhelpful, especially stated outright.
• On the issue over 'scepticism': I question mentioning scepticism specifically when rationalism isn't. And I felt like removing 'empirical' in order to replace it with some form of link to empiricism. The term currently links to 'empirical evidence' - which is valid, but also not at all philosophically valuable enough, in my view. And if we can't in the first sentence make clear what method is (and that seems quite the challenge to me) we can at least frame in a useful context.
• I think setting as equal a 'scholar' of something as an 'academic' is presumptuous. Being a scholar is more about the attitude with which you work, being an academic is about the system in which you work. An if we can't in the first sentence make clear what method is (and that seems quite the challenge to me) we can at least frame in a useful context.
• And, I'd like to read more on 'method clearly not being something which applies to all science', that statement seems like a quite broad rejection of any kind of unificationism.

JackTheSecond (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Aristotle did his marine biology at the Pyrrha lagoon, now called the Gulf of Kalloni, a specific situation from which he could make his many observations and conjectures. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:33, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

One should note, that the lead paragraph as it currently appears on Google reads:

The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century. The scientific method involves careful observation coupled with rigorous scepticism, because cognitive assumptions can distort the interpretation of the observation.

... which doesn't mention experiments at all; 'the scientific method' as well as 'observation' twice; and is just generally useless. JackTheSecond (talk) 13:38, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@JackTheSecond: Perhaps the first question is whether this article is about all science or just modern science, which insists on being "methodical", which was clearly a new demand made at the start of modern science. I think the answer is absolutely clear, and so if anyone disagrees they should explain why. Responses:

• Scepticism is something the empiricists and rationalists, or perhaps more usefully both Decartes and Bacon, agreed on. The whole idea of their being a need for method was connected with the idea that there is no force of nature which guides people to be unbiased. Therefore we have to be systematically cautious of being misled. That is what the term scepticism is referring to. Also, I don't think empiricism or rationalism are part of any serious definition of modern science. I think these categories can be seen as a questionable way of teaching people about the history of modern science, using an arguably unrealistic simplification. In any case, just taking them seriously, they contrast with each other by definition, and do not claim to cover all possible forms modern science.
• Scholarly implies academic. This is just how the English language works. Our readers will read things into our text.
• I don't know what you are referring to as unificationism. To me it is just a fact that not all science is "modern science", and modern science is a specific style of doing science in a systematically sceptical (critical, cautious) way. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:44, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• I feel it needs to be pointed out that your arguments against 'scholarly' are just as valid as an argument against 'empirical'. The implication of the word is wrong. Also, 'empirical' is not used anywhere in the article, in a sourced manner as to state 'this is method'.
• Thank you for your point on scepticism, the argument makes its inclusion much more apparent.
• Ah, you mean 'not all science' in a historical context. In that case, and you probably already agree anyway: Someone decided that the scientific discussion preceding the Age of Enlightenment was so fundamental as to be called some version of 'the first prominent one' and I am not here to question that. (WP:NOTTRUTH)
• Also, the second sentence that reads "It is often characterized by systematic observation and experimentation, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the formation and testing of hypotheses and theories." is sourced to a relatively authoritative enyclopedia, not just to a dictionary definition. (Currently there are two sources that are dictionaries in the lead.)
• Also, peripherally, the article is structured more like how science is taught in education than being about how science is done. Which is okay in my view, it's what most people will expect--but should be expanded upon.

I wrote another version; you are invited to comment on or even edit it: User:JackTheSecond/A new lead 'scientific method' Keep comments here, for centralised discussion. JackTheSecond (talk) 20:12, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

ping @Andrew Lancaster JackTheSecond (talk) 20:35, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@JackTheSecond: I am not sure where to find the other version you mention.

• "The implication of the word is wrong." Sorry, it is how modern English works. We are meant to take that into account. I am a native speaker of English. If I am seeing that implication others will, and so we need another solution.
• "you mean 'not all science' in a historical context" Your third bullet is impossible to parse. Can you explain your point please?
• The second sentence you cite seems fine to me, and is consistent with what I am saying, but it only says "often characterized by", so it does not define what unites all forms of scientific method, which is something we need in the opening lines. What unites all forms of scientific method is that they aim to be systematically careful to avoid bias (ie they are systematically sceptical), and an important aspect of this is that modern scientific method always avoids explanations which rely on unobservable things (i.e. metaphysical explanations). In other words, scientific method uses observations. In other words scientific method is empirical, not metaphysical. (Empirical science is not the same as empiricism, just to be clear. Empiricism is a supposed position about empirical science.) Notice that there are various ways to word these things. As editors our job is to pick clear wording. In these notes I am just trying to note the elements I think are required.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:18, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

There is a link included above. ~ JackTheSecond (talk) 22:21, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I think one concern is already clear, which is the word "scholarly". Personally I think one aspect of modern science, in contrast to previous science, is that it is less clearly distinct from practical technology (or artifice, to use the classical term). Shoe makers were different from classical philosophers/scientists, because they admitted their ignorance about what caused things. Shoemakers, like many engineers, rely on whatever they have seen works. Modern science no longer draws a big red line between these people and science. It no longer claims deeper understanding to be necessary. It is also just trying to work out what works. It is in other words less scholarly, and more practical. I also worry that you are pushing the text into a direction where modern science becomes Popperian, and all about testing hypotheses. It can be like this, but as far as defining modern science I think Popper and his ilk created no long lasting consensus, because their vision of science never matched how real scientists work. Anyway, for now I hope others will also consider and comment before we go further.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:31, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster I agree with retiring the discussion for the moment.

• On the question of the third point: You wrote that not all science is "modern science" and I was clarifying that I had not understood that previous. Doesn't matter, though, since I chose to retire the argument.
• You wrote: it does not define what unites all forms of scientific method. An issue with that is that there is significant disagreement with there being such a thing. But I recognise that you mean that we should write a Wikipedia lead a certain way, and agree with the assessment.

JackTheSecond (talk) 22:35, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I did not say anything about retiring any arguments. I am calling for more people to give their feedback, in the hope my feedback is now clear enough to help point to some potential concerns. As you say, this is a topic where it is difficult to define the consensus about what unifies the topic itself. I guess I am suggesting that rather than using controversial ideas like those of Popper, scientific method can be uncontroversially be identified as something which defines modern science. Just to reflect on your third bullet, what makes modern science special is connected on the one hand to the split between science and philosophy, and on the other hand to the blurring of lines between science and technology. We've mentioned the question of what non-modern science is and I've suggested that one aspect of non-modern science is that it sees itself as different in kind from practical arts and technical methods. In contrast, some of the precedents for modern science are to be found in the arts and crafts, which are also in a sense methodical, and reliant upon physical observations. The avoidance of metaphysics and reliance upon observation are a big deal which seem to me to more or less enter into every discussion about what unifies modern science and makes it seek "method".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:17, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Andrew Lancaster that calling it a "scholarly method" is not quite right, as I said above at 18:30, 20 March 2024 before Andrew joined the discussion. Why not just cut the adjective altogether: "The scientific method is a method for..." Biogeographist (talk) 21:55, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes maybe, but how to continue that sentence? What unites different ideas about scientific method might perhaps be something about the aim, but then again I suppose we can't just continue that sentence by using the word truth or certainty, can we, because that is also not something everyone would agree upon. But maybe we can use a negative wording. For example such method always aims to avoid or ameliorate the effects of bias, or other sources of error, by working in a careful and systematic way. Also, given the lack of consensus about the details of one ultimate scientific method, should there really be a "the"?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:18, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

should there really be a "the"? That basically seems to be a lie to children, perhaps harmless if the lack of consensus can be clarified later? Or do a more complicated lead that doesn't try to start with a (too simple) definition, as in the SEP article, which starts by talking about "The study of scientific method...". Biogeographist (talk) 22:24, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the SEP article works quite hard at not actually defining what 'scientific method' is exactly. It's an Encyclopedia on philosophy written by philosophers though, unspecific statements that encourage thought are kind of their thing... JackTheSecond (talk) 23:10, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, after I posted that sentence about the SEP, I was reviewing in my mind all the ways that the SEP article is different from this one. The SEP article is not such a good point of comparison, although it does what it does well. The lead section of this article needs to reflect what this article actually says. Biogeographist (talk) 00:26, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the SEP approach or something similar might be necessary. In any case, scientific method is not in fact a single method and so we should not imply that it is. It is instead an unclear goal, which has varied over time, and between different proponents and practitioners. It is in a sense a vision (or group of similar visions) concerning how science should be done in order to avoid biased interpretations of observations.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:11, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

A possible first sentence for consideration, attempting to avoid jargon or specific controversial positions, at least for the first sentence: Scientific method is any sceptical systematic approach used by scientists, especially modern scientists, when they interpret physical evidence.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:50, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

You will not be surprised to learn that this psychologist objects to "physical evidence."  ;^) Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 16:18, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

@Markworthen From my random readings about programming, a note in a computer article documented that John Forbes Nash may have started along his road back to mental health by learning how to program computers. Another factor might have been the consideration and tolerance toward him, as exhibited by his ex-wife, as well as that exhibited toward him in Fine Hall where he learned how to program on his own. (John Locke (a physician) is well known to have espoused such behavior (consideration and tolerance) toward others.)

Barendregt 2000 p.7 recommends a specific mathematical practice to maintain hygiene. -- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 12:23, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Here is my attempt: The scientific method is a set of principles and procedures for acquiring knowledge through careful observation, inducing falsifiable hypotheses from those observations, and, in most disciplines, designing experiments to test the hypotheses, refining hypotheses based on experimental findings, and inferring tentative truths from the observations and experiments. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 17:25, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Big problem: it is quite simply incorrect. There is no agreed set of principles and procedures. Please let's stop proposing anything which demands this assumption? More generally, I think the first sentence should be short and easy to understand. For example, anything which starts with "including" is surely for some later part of the lede. We must not try to fit everything into the first sentence! (Run on sentences are a big problem on Wikipedia.) :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:42, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I like the term approach (lets not combine it with sceptical, though); it sets a direction quite nicely. ~ And I think 'systematic' is defendable as well, as just because nobody understands it, doesn't mean that it is not systematic; also the SEP uses it.

A poorly thought out (and most certainly atrociously written) idea would be: The scientific method is a systematic approach used by scientists to investigate phenomena, formulate hypotheses, conduct experiments or observations, analyse data, and draw conclusions. The discussion on how to best advance knowledge has defined the sciences since at least the 17th century,(insert previous note on the scientific revolution) and has at all points in time been subject to debate and disagreement.

I am sure "sceptical" fits in there somehow as well. (I don't really love 'falsifiable') JackTheSecond (talk) 19:05, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The sentence should be generic. I think it should be similar to the lead with some extra wording from Jackthesecond "The scientific method is one of multiple methods for acquiring knowledge of the natural world that has characterized the development of science formally since at least the 17th century. It has at all points in time been subject to debate and disagreement since variations on how best to acquire knowledge do exist." Often times the scientific method is induction, but there are other methods like deduction and abduction and inference. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:16, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

@JackTheSecond: You proposal is a long sentence but I think it is not too bad at covering what it needs to cover. FWIW: normal English words which could explain "sceptical" enough for a first sentence include "cautious", "careful", etc. Systematic should indeed be useful because it is just a way of saying "methodical" in a sense which explains the original intention. The basic idea is that various aspects of the approach are planned or at least pre-considered, and there is an attempt to them logically consistent. One of the problems with all philosophical concepts is that the words become technical terms and people no longer get the original point.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

@Ramos1990: I think it is simply wrong to say or imply that there is "one" scientific method, and even more wrong to imply that there alternative scientific methods. The scientific method is also never just pure induction, and deduction etc are not alternatives to induction. You are confusing apples and oranges. Induction and deduction existed long before science, and long before method.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmm...not sure what this means "I think it is simply wrong to say or imply that there is "one" scientific method, and even more wrong to imply that there alternative scientific methods”. I agree that there is no "one" scientific method. See here [1] for example. But what do you propose? I am following the "modern use and critical thought section" of the article. The "overview" section too does a good job that it is mainly principles, not formal steps or sequnce any scientist actually makes in practice. There are numerous ways to answer questions, not one method of course. Ramos1990 (talk) 22:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

@JackTheSecond: more comments on your proposal. In order to avoid implying that there is one method I still prefer to avoid "the", and I prefer "any" over "a". For example: Scientific method is any systematic approach used by scientists to try to minimize error and bias when interpreting phenomena, formulating hypotheses, and planning experiments or observations. In this example the bit which covers the sceptical or cautious aspect is the bit I have added about trying to avoid error or bias.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:59, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I think any works fine. Pluralism seems the way to go, from what I've read, anyway. ~ I think you're going way to far with minimize error and bias though. The goal of science (and therefore of 'method') is progress, and therefore forward-looking. Trying to minimize error and bias is too self-reflective and implies sitting down and thinking about 'how to do things' not walking ahead and progressing science. We leave the thinking part to the philosophers. (Or us, in their absence...) JackTheSecond (talk) 10:10, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

If scientists do not think about how to minimize error and bias then they are not being methodical in the way demanded by modern science, or even by managers in production companies. If scientists just follow instructions blindly (unreflectively) then they they are arguably technicians, and not scientists. I know people don't use that distinction very much any more, but if they thought carefully about their words, this is what they mean (or meant). In any case for our purposes, if scientific method really exists, and if it is really used, then it is indeed a tiny bit philosophical. It is not an instruction book. Be as reflective as a person on a production line is not asking much when science and philosophy were once considered to aspects of the same way of life. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you but it seems that you think modern scientists are less reflective than nearly any way of life I am familiar with.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:37, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Just to take a step back and put it a different way, the concept "scientific method" will often be part of answers to the question "what makes any particular belief "scientific"?" Another related idea which would be likely in such answers is that scientific knowledge is the result of a more careful and reflective and, yes, philosophical, process than other types of belief. It is in a sense a belief that has been given extra quality control. In any case you've already noted that being systematically sceptical is part of modern science, and that means the same thing in practice, so we can still revert to just using that type of terminology. However, as with the word "method", the word "scepticism" is abstract/ technical for some readers. By avoiding them I was aiming to help them envision what happens in practice.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:51, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Scientific method is the systematic approach used by scientists to investigate phenomena, formulate hypotheses, and draw conclusions. It involves careful characterizations, coupled with rigorous scepticism because cognitive assumptions can distort initial perceptions and compromise the integrity of inferences.

I think 'the' works fine, because 'approach' is pretty broad. 'Any' would require a larger consensus, maybe. It also comes close to implying 'you can do anything' and is maybe a little much for the first sentence.

I think the first sentence is good this way. I used a slightly altered version of the second one, maybe you have an opinion. JackTheSecond (talk) 14:22, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I still think "any" would be better. A possible compromise would be to qualify this with a word like "broad" perhaps. In any case I hope more editors will comment on these ideas. I'm putting aside your ideas about second sentences for now.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:03, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I think we also have to be careful about letting the first sentence become a run on sentence, with lots of bits and pieces added to cover specific talk page issues. Maybe the first sentence should be simpler, in order to help make it easier to cover various points in other sentences. Here is an idea. Scientific method is any systematic approach or method used to construct and criticize scientific understandings of nature.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:20, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Notes

References

Surprising science: fixpoints yield a Nash equilibrium

While adding details to a math sub-article in lambda calculus I was surprised to see a note explaining how John Forbes Nash arrived at his Nobel-level result in Nash equilibrium. (Nash's method was to apply the fixpoint concept to game theory. Nash used the Kakutani fixed-point theorem. A Hair whorl is a concrete example of a fixpoint; fixpoints are a feature of lambda calculus, but the meaningful use of fixpoint requires the ability to shift one's ontological level midstream during one's investigation (This can be implemented with lambda calculus' abstraction operator $\lambda$ etcetera $.$ (The lambda and the dot demarcate the level of discourse about the topic, which is denoted etcetera here). Thus philosophical training (e.g. ethics, ontology, deontology ...) is needed to understand a scientific result (see John Locke's influence on scientific training). I learned this scientific requirement from a comment by Allen Newell (namely that he usually thinks on multiple levels simultaneously). The discussion on this talk page is an illustration of our need to denote the contextual level when we are communicating with each other.

There is a surprising breadth to the Wikipedia corpus, isn't there. (This italicized name was bestowed by the big data websites.)

References

-- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 08:43, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Defeasible reasoning

I propose to include belief revision, defeasible reasoning, and non-monotonic logic in the most recent 'Citation needed' as efns. These are topics in philosophy of logic which are now approachable with advances in formal syntax (meaning type theory). It should be possible to bridge to new contexts this way. So the efns will allow 'work in process' in parallel with the re-write now in process. -- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 23:58, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

That's a good extension on what I am trying to do; to have links to basically everything covered in the article, as it is an oft-travelled one by people new to the sciences, who are motivated to learn more. I am not sure how to work that into the philosophical discussion, though; It sounds like a subsection on 'Scientific reasoning' in the section on 'inquiry' might work best.

The 'inquiry' section seems to me like a non-sequential approach to an explanation of what scientific method is. Reasoning would fit there, I think. (It seems to me someone in the past moved the sections on 'reasoning' out of the article, probably because they got too long or something.) JackTheSecond (talk) 00:46, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

This article appears to be adjoint to Knowledge representation and reasoning.

I have found a citation: Carl Hewitt (2015) Inconsistency robustness. This could be an organizing topic for the inquiry section: Inconsistency robustness. It resembles Paraconsistency. Belief revision, defeasible reasoning, and non-monotonic logic would all fit into this topic. The motivation for this topic is a fact: A large-enough software system must reliably handle inconsistency in its ontology, or go out of service (which is catastrophic for the business). In other words the large companies already have this feature in their automated systems, or they have a help desk. Hewitt sees that logic programming must evolve, like functional programming to be more precise and technical.

Classical logic (such as Law of excluded middle) fails in the face of inconsistency, but for mathematical constructivists the Law of excluded middle is invalid; a proof is to be constructed, to be trusted. This may be a way to handle inconsistency philosophically in the article. There is also Constructivism in science education, and in Constructivism (philosophy of education).

Four-valued logic#Applications has been realized as hardware. Electrical engineering students are routinely taught these circuits (which use high impedance and don't care in addition to true, false as logic states). This may be a way to handle classical logic's conundrums using hardware systems to reduce an expression. Humans seem to handle inconsistency on a routine basis to the extent that bounded rationality is unremarkable. But a scientific method would need to flag an inconsistency in a science. In other words, that method would need to identify the necessary Witness (mathematics) to keep things honest.

It should be noted that User:Prof. Carl Hewitt is now deceased. (He was a contributor to this article but was blocked from editing Wikipedia. This is unjust in my view.) (User:Robert Kowalski is also a contributor to the logic programming articles. He has an article.) -- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 13:50, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Quite extensive. This is beginning to sound like it could fill a separate article on scientific reasoning. But I must admit that it'd take me too much reading to make informed statements on computer science. JackTheSecond (talk) 15:29, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

References

Musement

JackTheSecond, you can remove my lengthy response as appropriate. I learned this from another editor, The Tetrast. American readers might recognize the relationship to Deism (which is not a religion --see Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Douglas Hume, Freemasonry, etc.). Basarab Nicolescu has another stance/theory. Here is a real-time example for the discovery of like-minded collaborators. -- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 11:26, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, something useful to think about! I do note though that none of that is in the lead. I find a title like that generally hard to justify in a scientific context. JackTheSecond (talk) 15:29, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Rules of reasoning

As @Andrew Lancaster suggested in this reversion with friendly revert of very bold editing. there is clearly no consensus for this radical change, and it would definitely need discussion first. there is no one canonical method, statistics is not essential to science, empiricism is diffierent from empirical science, etc. I should make my reasoning for a new way to lead the article clear.

I normally wouldn't have made changes this drastic without prior discussion... but the History section as is stands was unable to defend itself on merit. But even if it was, and even if it does again, I genuinely believe that the history of science is better framed in the examples throughout the text, as useful historic examples coupled with needed inspiration. The history section frames either the discord or the myth of science best; not method. It is therefore best placed with the Philosophy section to frame the discord that continues.

It seems to me as if the history of the 'History' section was that of first growing into a monster before discussion rectified that. It then tried... hard, at not really being a history section at all, before being cut dramatically again. It's now in a bit of a weird state, looking unfinished and with a focus on recent debate.

I also want to argue that anything that is 'current discussion' is not (strictly) history, and would be better covered in context; so should be moved, regardless of the other changes, into the section on 'philosophy' entirely. This would also prevent duplication.

Also, I figure if a lead section on reasoning was good enough for the Principia, it might just work for us as well... JackTheSecond (talk) 12:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

And on the side note of statistics not being essential to science... that's true, and maybe someone could find a better way to word the phrasing there. I do maintain that at least the principles of statistics are important in science; at least important enough to be of import to the public understanding of science, and therefore of relevance to this article. JackTheSecond (talk) 12:46, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

It might also be useful to my argument to point out that the paragraph of empiricism vs rationalism lead the article before the latest revisions as part of the history sections. And has stood for quite a while as well. My change *looks* quite a bit more radical than it really is.

I took two sources used in the lead but not in the article and expanded on them (Newton and Pierce), I wrote a section on inductive and deductive reasoning, phrasology used quite often throughout the article but unexplained -- the only actually controversial part are the principles of statistics.

Everything else, while likely to not be perfect (and maybe not even that good, what do I know...) is quite in line with what the article already was trying to be.

Sorry, I'm done with my argument now, and confident in it. JackTheSecond (talk) 15:18, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I think things like statistics, maths, and logic (including induction and deduction) should probably be in the article somewhere, but not in an introductory section where they seem to be part of a single definition of "the" method. I am going to keep hammering the theme that we should avoid implying that there is one single agreed method. I do appreciate your efforts though.

Here is another one of my own crazy ideas. Maybe, we should have a first section after the lead which is about the pre-modern history and even etymology of the concept. (Method is an Aristotle word.) One source of this idea is simply that it is a typical Wikipedia approach that is easy to use, which can help us try to move into a discussion about some of the most important branches or approaches, without confusing specific types of method with method overall.

If we are going to use rationalism and empiricism as a structuring device then we have to be careful IMHO. As far as I know none of the historical figures who are used to exemplify these terms in university courses ever thought of themselves using these terms, or anything remotely similar. Newton is sometimes seen as someone who combined both. What this really means is that he was influenced by both Bacon and Descartes, but so was everyone else who was actually engaged in the practice of science. Personally I would prefer not to force reality to fit in this procrustean bed. I would rather that we structure our discussion in terms of Descartes and Bacon, and what really happened in science (Galileo, Newton). The safest way to discuss rationalism and empiricism is as the names of tendencies, or priorities, or arguments. (I can't find the perfect term.) The two extreme positions have possibly never existed in the real world. They are used to teach people about a certain epistemological tension which will never be resolved.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:35, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Hm, a bit unfoccussed your argument. -- I think your point about the avoidance of implication against there being a single scientific method of any kind is not based on what the article currently is, and therefore not an argument against my changes. Everything else you suggest seems like further work in the direction I was already taking.

Consensus might still be needed with at least a few other editors, but my arguments still stand comfortably. JackTheSecond (talk) 17:03, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we can agree to re-instate the edit and move the section to the bottom for now--until such time as a... gestation period has passed. JackTheSecond (talk) 22:08, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

In the spirit of my previous reply, perhaps this material can be adapted for use lower down in the article, but the idea of just moving it without reworking it seems odd to me. I continue to hope we'll get a wider range of input from other editors. From my point of view, even if you disagree, I think the material needs some review. I feel that in many small ways it is constantly pushing the idea that there is one "the" "canonical" method. This might not be deliberate. More generally the wording choices often feel like they are not written for readers who don't already know much about the topic. Topics are introduced without their relevance being explained, and this feels like it is intended to imply things. I think there are some distinctions which we need to be careful with in our wordings, such as the difference between empirical science itself, and empiricism.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:12, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, in the spirit of my previous reply: The implication of there being 'one' scientific method is in line with the current article, and not an argument against inclusion, I feel like. And the paragraph on empiricism has stood for years already.

I invite you to agree to self-revert your edit, move the section down to the very bottom, and... boldly fix what may be wrong with it. JackTheSecond (talk) 07:30, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not sure that bold edits are the right way forward if there is no consensus about some of the basic themes. I personally have to concentrate on a few other things right now.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:59, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Hm, there actually is a section such as I was imagining at Models of scientific inquiry#Choice of a theory. I might just spin that off into a full article on 'Scientific reasoning' (currently a redirect to the 'models' article) and see where things go. JackTheSecond (talk) 18:21, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Predictions

the section on predictions currently does not cite any sources, and the SEP article suggests predictions to be a goal of science, not a method as such. Maybe the content there should be moved elsewhere? JackTheSecond (talk) 20:51, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

The recognition of regularities in nature (outside the decrees of Man), such as the heliacal rising of Sirius, predicting the annual flooding of the Nile is well known. But there are other predictions in the article, such as the total solar eclipses, which were well-publicized for Graz in 1600 even though Tycho Brahe didn't believe in them. The eclipse track across North America on 8 April 2024 surely qualifies as prediction. Also, the global climate model giving rise to to numerical weather prediction and the weather events on the news are predictions.

Perhaps It takes recognition of a regularity to qualify as a methodological event. Fleck distinguished 'quotidian science' as outside the scope of new science, and scientific method is well-suited for discovering new, non-routine science as well as for maintaining a science. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 00:29, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I am not saying that predictions aren't part of science. Just that predictions are a part of science more like (new) knowledge is, and not strictly how new knowledge comes to be. The examples are fine I think, and maybe the section is too. One of the examples could be moved there, maybe? JackTheSecond (talk) 08:38, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I think I agree with Jack on this. Obviously some visions of scientific method aim to be able to create predictions, but this is in a sense the same as saying that aim to create testable knowledge, so "predictions", or certain types of predictions, are being treated as equivqlent to scientific knowledge.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Taleb

Taleb is used in various statements throughout the article. His wikipage indicated he was... a stock-trader? I am sure he writes well, but should his writing as it is used here in context with method be scrutinized as WP:SYNTH? JackTheSecond (talk) 21:58, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Black swan is shorthand. It forces people to realize that classifications that were not expected (logic syllogisms that misclassify e.g. All swans are white, until you get to Australia); because black swans are real; what was thought of as logically correct is actually wrong in reality. So finance markets are agnostic about logic, but in fact reward performance because markets have to worry about reality (they have to unearth bias). --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 22:29, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, he is at least giving context only. Tow too seems quite non-serious scientifically, he together with Popper is used to counter Feyerabend, misrepresenting Popper in the process as well. JackTheSecond (talk) 12:04, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Smolin recounts how Feyerabend told him that we (plural) don't understand why/how science works (in the sense of adding new knowledge). How does Feyerabend count as an authority about method? Feyerabend's account of method is ex falso quodlibet, which is uneconomic. That 'account' does not let us trace any failures, so that we might fix a problem when it occurs. A good prediction gives a process a benchmark, an expectation to compare with observation/experiment in that process. When expected value matches observed value in an experiment or process, the error is low, and that allows us to produce more units (e.g. repeated experiment, or manufacturing step, etc.) with lower error, and to use those units in future processes with higher confidence. Taleb calls this practice anti-fragility. -- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 22:22, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

That is all helpful information, thank you! I was trying to point out however that Popper basically said that there is (at least no complex) scientific method, only trial and error. -- And also that Tow's contribution to the discussion seems like either an off-hand remark or fringe science and carries the authority and influence of his book and a LinkedIn profile; I haven't found anything else.

For the record (and in case that was unclear) Feyerabend's influence seems to have been unhelpful, even if he may have had a point initially back when the unity of science was a big deal... I'm just saying that Tow and Popper don't seem like the best version of the argument. JackTheSecond (talk) 22:51, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

A quote from Staddon 2017: There is of course an alternative to evolution by natural selection: evolution by intelligent design (ID). I will take a little time on this issue because it shows how proof in science, especially on the margins, is not always cut-and-dried. Different people, with different backgrounds, will accept and reject different kinds of proof.

... I kind of want to throw him out too. JackTheSecond (talk) 10:11, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I got around to Taleb, I think. He seems to be a bit of a divisive figure, but his authority cannot be questioned out of hand at least. JackTheSecond (talk) 22:10, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Lead image

I want to move the lead image to 'Elements of inquiry#overview' as the diagram features neither reasoning or integrity/truth/objectivity. Since it's a bit of a larger scale change, I thought I'd ask for indications of objections first. JackTheSecond (talk) 17:30, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd be happy if that image was moved out of the lead. Predictable reason: it equates scientific method to one specific method. More specifically, this is basically a model used in schools and undergraduate courses. There is nothing wrong with it for those purposes, but it does not for example help us understand Newton.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to move it. Maybe more people decide to weigh in, but as no one has in previous discussion, I am going to presume a consensus. For the moment.

By the way @Andrew Lancaster, do you have literature on what you mean with 'multiple' scientific methods? -- Because while they all disagree on what it is, I didn't see anyone asserting there to be one than one yet. JackTheSecond (talk) 18:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't focus too much on my words on the talk page. I am mostly concerned about NOT saying that there is a single clear consensus-method. That is not the same as claiming that there are multiple methods. The way I read it, scientific method in practice is about trying to be methodical. That is the only common thread. Of course if you want an example of a written-out step-by-step method proposal, which is different from say Popper, you will be able to find many. Bacon himself proposed a method, but like the others it never really stuck.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:26, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that clarification. My current understanding is that one useful interpretation is that scientific method is an attempt at explaining the nature of scientific progress. Who does the explaining and to whom and why differs greatly. So does usefulness. JackTheSecond (talk) 23:12, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I think scientific method is originally a practical approach to doing natural science (studying nature), which is supposed to make science more effective and useful to mankind. Being strict about it I think you are jumping up one "meta" level and thinking of the study of scientific method, which might I think most typically be seen as part of epistemology. (Sorry, "meta" seems to have become a part of the language.) So the proposal to use this approach, and all the different proposals about how to do it, or studies about how it has been done in the past, such as Popper, Kuhn, etc, are not method as such. Does this seem wrong?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:16, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I concur. :0) Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 14:17, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

post modern philosophy and stuff

It kind of seems to me that the post-modern arguments and the debate of realism vs anti-realism are both not strictly relevant to this article as well as not at all useful... (*cough* to the article, neutral pov and stuff)

Also, there is a lot of 'the scientific method is this and can be represented as such' in the article, which seems reads a bit too definitive in places (especially as related to the simplified, circular model) ... are there issues with softening that?

2 points, feedback pls :) JackTheSecond (talk) 18:24, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Concerning the 1st point I don't see any discussion of post modernism. Also I get concerned on WP when I see editors imply that something is post-modernist and therefore should be removed. (I don't know if that is where you are headed.) I think that at least in philosophy post modernist ideas are often respectable, and not fringe ideas. But to be clear: I don't really know which bits you are talking about.

Concenring the 2nd point this reasoning sounds reasonable to me.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:30, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Collection of relevant quotes: (that were in the article before I started working on it)

• This ongoing debate, known as the science wars, is the result of conflicting values and assumptions between the postmodernist and realist camps. Whereas postmodernists assert that scientific knowledge is simply another discourse (this term has special meaning in this context) and not representative of any form of fundamental truth, realists in the scientific community maintain that scientific knowledge does reveal real and fundamental truths about reality. Many books have been written by scientists which take on this problem and challenge the assertions of the postmodernists while defending science as a legitimate method of deriving truth.
• that form the base of the scientific method – namely, that reality is objective and consistent, that humans have the capacity to perceive reality accurately, and that rational explanations exist for elements of the real world.

... and I am not arguing their removal based on their perceived usefulness but on the fact that they deal with the nature of knowledge, and that that discussion is on epistemology, not method. (So the subject may matter, to an extent--but the discussion does not.)

The part about the the "theory-laden" character of observation seems fine for example, even if I don't yet understand what exactly is going on there. It's about postpositivism and bias, but who exactly is saying what I haven't bothered overly much with yet.

Also just fine is 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 btw, which relates the nature of knowledge with the pursuit. JackTheSecond (talk) 18:47, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster I forgot to ping. :) JackTheSecond (talk) 20:58, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Just to further explain my thought on the section formerly titled "Philosophy and sociology of science": I my view most of the things there should be put into the context of "current discourse" because they are not agreed upon. That currently means Feyerabend's views should be put into the context of "Freedom vs structure" or something. Hard not to synthesize that idea... JackTheSecond (talk) 22:17, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Natural deduction from induction, deduction

JackTheSecond, here are some other sources for Elements of reason in the article (so we don't have to rely so much on SEP):

From induction--- Newton's account of the System of the World:(Newton (1846) Principia III 506-507 Motte translation) says:

But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phænomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phænomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction. Thus it was that the impenetrability, the mobility, and the impulsive force of bodies, and the laws of motion and of gravitation, were discovered. And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea.

From deduction--- There was a rival to Aristotle's logic (see Stoic logic#Arguments): Indemonstrable argument from the Stoics and Epicurus. The table below rewrites the Indemonstrables as Sequents. We can use sequents styled from Gerhard Gentzen's LJ natural deduction, in which we start from arguments A1, A2, A3 ... and arrive at conclusion C1. In symbols: $\Gamma A_{1},A_{2},A_{3}...\vdash C_{1}$□ . Note the single conclusion C1 for case $\Gamma$. This allows systematic debugging of a process, by abstracting out $\Gamma A_{1},A_{2},A_{3}...\vdash C_{1}$□ using case-based reasoning about that process.

Also if we look at propositional calculus, Peirce's law says that ((p→q)→p)→p. Equivalently $((p\to q)\to (p\land q))\to p$. In Sequent form: $((p\to q)\;\to p)\;\vdash \;p$. In words, " p must be true if there is a proposition q such that the truth of p follows from the truth of (p→q)".

In LJ sequent form we can even denote the hypothesis $\Gamma \;(p\to q)\to p\;\vdash p$ to distinguish hypothesis from the conclusion $p$, which comes after the turnstile ($\;\vdash \;$), while hypothesis comes before the turnstile.

Indemonstrable arguments
Name[d]	Description	Modern sequent	Example
Modus ponens	If p, then q.  p.  Therefore, q.	$p\to q,\;p\;\;\vdash \;\;q$	If it is day, it is light. It is day. Therefore, it is light.
Modus tollens	If p, then q.  Not q.  Therefore, not p.	$p\to q,\;\neg q\;\;\vdash \;\neg p$	If it is day, it is light. It is not light. Therefore, it is not day.
Modus ponendo tollens	Not both p and q.  p.  Therefore, not q.	$\neg (p\land q),\;p\;\;\vdash \;\neg q$	It is not both day and night. It is day. Therefore, it is not night.
Strong modus tollendo ponens	Either p or q.  Not p.  Therefore, q.	$p{\underline {\lor }}q,\;\neg p\;\;\vdash \;\;q$	It is either day or night. It is not day. Therefore, it is night.
Strong modus ponendo tollens	Either p or q.  p.  Therefore, not q.	$p{\underline {\lor }}q,\;p\;\;\vdash \;\neg q$	It is either day or night. It is day. Therefore, it is not night.

If we add an idea from our own time, the Markup language, and cast it in Sequent form, we can highlight a problem that Newton posed to himself, by comparing the markup with his original statement:

But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause $\Gamma ...\vdash$ of those properties of $C_{1}$ .. gravity from phænomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phænomena $A_{1},A_{2},A_{3}$is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction. Thus it was that the impenetrability (from Galileo, ...) the mobility,(from Kepler, Newton ...) and the impulsive force of bodies, and the laws of motion and of gravitation, (from Newton ...) were discovered. And to us it is enough that $C_{1}$ gravity does really exist, and act □ according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea.

Newton founded his System of the World on experimental physics. He said

... 'tis much better to do a little with certainty, and leave the rest to others

Newton also said

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Now Newton's 'ocean of truth' quote brings The rising sea to mind: Alexandre Grothendieck's mathematical method. The rising sea (Grothendieck's quote is on p.9 in a book of the same name, by Ravi Vakil, 2017). Rather than heroic methods of solution, Grothendieck's method is patience. He muses, and lets analogies come to mind. He demonstrates the solvent action of small processes (the water), so that problems are addressed naturally when reading the steps of a proof. (Colin McLarty: Grothendieck is trying to reach the natural topos for a problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmcbm5FxRJE&t=518s . Compare to Grothendieck's scheme with Johnstone's Sketches of an Elephant, which seeks to determine the natural topos of a problem, in order to solve it. )

Lee Smolin has characterized the use of topoi as the proper setting for solving the cause of gravity. (In the meantime, perhaps we might well have to be patient, and just wait for new developments.

Thank you for your work on the article.)

References

-- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:46, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I'll probably write a section on logic... somehow. And I agree that references to the SEP article can be reduced--it's just quite the ardous talk to do so, when you don't know where to look for specifically. (If you want a look at the current state of... vague ideas: they live in my sandbox currently.) JackTheSecond (talk) 20:33, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

causal mechanisms

The article on the Deductive-nomological model mentions that the model fell to new discoveries being made through discovery of "causal mechanisms". I wonder if anyone knows the model of inquiry that replaced it. It sounds like something that could be talked about in relation to Einstein's theory of relativity reducing Newton's laws to "relations" (quoted in Weinert 2004) and maybe invariant explanations, I don't really know. Anyway, somebody here who can drop a source on whatever it is? JackTheSecond (talk) 12:10, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

pinging @User:Occurring just in case they are still around and have an answer. JackTheSecond (talk) 12:18, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I already know 154.161.154.173 (talk) 20:10, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 June 2024

Popper previously took ethical principles even further, going as far as to **ascrible** 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:[101][102]

change **ascrible** to ascribe 37.128.247.226 (talk) 13:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

 Done tgeorgescu (talk) 15:58, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Methods of scientific approach

Observation, classification, hypothesis, experiments measurements, inference,control, conclusion,theory and law 129.205.124.227 (talk) 13:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 November 2024

A new 2024 study published in PNAS Nexus extends the classic scientific method and would be a nice addition to the “Limits of method” section. Can you include the following additional one or two sentences below and reference at the end of the ‘Science of complex systems’ subsection within the “Limits of method” section?

A study of science’s major discoveries including all Nobel Prize discoveries illustrates that 25% of discoveries since 1900 did not apply the common scientific method (all three features)—with 6% of discoveries using no observation, 23% using no experimentation and 17% not testing a hypothesis. Empirical evidence thus challenges the common view of the scientific method and strictly adhering to it can constrain some new scientific ideas and breakthroughs, which suggests that we need to reform and extend the way we view the scientific method. Scientific Methodology (talk) 10:56, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Friend, Einstein used the physical instruments pen and paper for making his discoveries. But that's only the beginning of the story. Scientific theory which does not get confirmed experimentally for making bold, original predictions, is totally lame. So, yes, Einstein got the Nobel because an army of physicists were experimentally testing his claims.

Quote: "Such methods extend our mind and generally make observing, experimenting, and testing hypotheses in science possible, doing so in new ways and ensure their replicability." Isn't that self-defeating?

“At first sight this is a classic case of Arts Faculty science. Never mind the hypothesis, give me the data, and there aren’t any,” said Professor Steve Jones at [2]. Note: this is not about Krauss lacking data, it is about how science works in general. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:15, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm. That paper does look relevant. "The classic scientific method needs to be integrated into and redefined as the sophisticated scientific method that better reflects actual scientific practice." It looks more appropriate in areas where Gauch is cited since his work states that the scientific method is more flexible than rigid process. AAAS also says the same. Not sure if the paper says that the "classic" scientific method is limiting, but rather that our "classical" description of it is oversimplified and inaccurate. Ramos1990 (talk) 23:20, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 15:07, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

References

Proposal to Add Historical Context to the Definition of the Scientific Method

The current definition of the scientific method on the Wikipedia page emphasizes its formalization in the 17th century. While this is accurate in the context of its modern framework during the European Enlightenment, it does not fully reflect the historical development of empirical and systematic methodologies that predate this period. I propose including a more comprehensive view that acknowledges earlier contributions from diverse civilizations, providing readers with a broader understanding of the scientific method’s historical evolution. Proposed Revision "The scientific method is an empirical approach for acquiring knowledge, characterized by observation, experimentation, and systematic reasoning. While it was formalized as a methodological framework in the 17th century during the European Enlightenment, elements of empirical inquiry have been present in various civilizations throughout history, as seen in ancient Indian, Chinese, Greek, and Islamic contributions to science." Supporting Historical Context To support this revision, I suggest adding a subsection or a brief note that contextualizes pre-17th century contributions: "Empirical approaches to knowledge acquisition were practiced in various civilizations long before the 17th century. In ancient India, texts such as the Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita outlined systematic methods of medical diagnosis and treatment. In ancient Greece, Aristotelian natural philosophy emphasized observation and classification of the natural world. During the Islamic Golden Age, scientists like Ibn al-Haytham developed rigorous experimental methods in optics and other fields. Chinese traditions also employed systematic approaches in medicine and natural sciences. These practices laid important foundations for the formalization of the scientific method during the Scientific Revolution." References To substantiate these claims, I recommend including the following reliable sources: Butterfield, Herbert. The Origins of Modern Science. Vol. 90507. Simon and Schuster, 1965. Grant, Edward. The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages. Sivin, Nathan. Science in Ancient China. Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early 'Abbasid Society (2nd-4th/5th-10th c.). Routledge, 2012. Majhi, Laxman. "The Contribution of Ancient Indians to the World of Science and Technology." International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts 11.10 (2023): c898-c903. Rationale This expanded view does not detract from the importance of the 17th-century formalization but provides a historically accurate account of the continuity of empirical methods across cultures. By acknowledging these contributions, the article would better align with Wikipedia’s commitment to neutrality and global representation, enriching the understanding of the scientific method’s evolution. I look forward to feedback from other editors on this proposed change. PrateekthePrateek (talk) 13:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree with your proposal on adding such a statement, section, and sources. The scientific method has been around for a very long time. Aristotle, William of Ockham, Roger Bacon, etc are notable examples of the historical and cultural diversity and the Islamic ones you mentioned also. In the ancient world you also have Egyptian and Babylonian methodologies. Definitely can be expanded beyond western/Eurocentric scope like the Science article already is. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:33, 13 December 2024 (UTC)