The Scientific Method
Many people may remember the scientific method from their science classes. If it’s been a while for you, it goes something like this.
- Make an Observation
- Ask a Question about what you Observed
- Research for existing answers or solutions to that question
- If you find no existing answers or solutions, form a hypothesis about what happened
- Do an experiment to test your hypothesis
- Accept, reject, or revise your hypothesis based on your test results
- Draw conclusions based on the hypothesis and test results
- Repeat steps 4-7 as many times as needed
- Report and share your findings
This is pretty straightforward. You see something and you wonder why it happens. If you find no well tested answers, you try to figure out what causes it by running experiments until you figure out the root cause. Once you can reliably repeat your experiment to demonstrate the cause, you then share your results.
Everyone does this to some extent going throughout their day. For example, say you notice that Carl is angry, and you wonder if he had a bad night’s rest. You’ve just completed steps 1-2 and are about to proceed to step 3/4/5 (they’re a little tied together in this case) by asking Carl what has him so riled up today. You then accept or reject you hypothesis (that Carl had a bad night’s sleep) depending on what he tells you. If you wanted to repeat the test, you could ask him a couple times and see if the results are the same.
While there is obviously more to the intricacies of science, such as creating good tests, vetting trustworthy sources, and understanding your field well, going into those would take far too much time. If you want to look into it more, then here is a good start. Let’s look at a few terms that are often misused before moving on.
Hypotheses, Facts, Laws, and Theories
Science boils down to four things: Hypotheses, Facts, Laws, and Theories. They are usually related in some way. For example, a law about a phenomenon could be discovered. Shortly thereafter, a hypothesis about a fact based on the discovered law could be made followed by the results of an experiment that confirms the fact. When you start tying together really in depth explanations of how something works, that’s when you get a theory. Let’s look at these more in depth.
Hypotheses
Hypothesis – a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis ) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts. Plural: Hypotheses
Dictionary Definition of Hypothesis
A hypothesis is the initial exploratory explanation of an observation that has not yet been proven true or false. This the best guess that needs testing in order to determine if it is true or false. Depending on how the testing goes, the hypothesis could be revised, rewritten, or completely thrown out dozens or even hundreds of times.
Until the person making a claim can show that the hypothesis is indeed a good explanation for the data, and is unable to prove their explanation false, it needs to be continually tested. When the person making the claim believes their claim to be true, and their tests bear out that result, then they have others also test the claim. If even one person finds a problem with the hypothesis, it will often need to be modified even more until it becomes a good explanation for the phenomenon. Confirming and failing to refute, or refuting and failing to confirm, a hypothesis can lead to new facts or laws.
Facts
A scientific fact is an observation that has been proven to be true and has often withstood many attempts to prove it wrong. That doesn’t mean it can’t be proven wrong, nor does it mean it won’t be proven wrong in the future. It merely means that to the best of our abilities right now, the fact appears to be true and can be treated as such. Laws and Theories often build upon facts to give explanations of why those facts are true.
Laws
If the explanation of the phenomenon can be described with a mathematical relationship, such as Newton’s law of Gravitational Attraction, it’s considered a law. These laws are like tools in a tool box that allow the user to predict what would happen given certain initial conditions. If cases arise in the future that show a shortcoming in the law, additional testing can be done to determine why it falls short and amend it. These edge cases point out the limits of our understanding. Sometimes, the tests to determine why there is a problem with a law bring new scientific breakthroughs and discoveries.
Laws don’t describe why they work, they merely describe the observation. To use Newton’s law of Gravitation again, we can determine how strong of a force 2 bodies feel in relation to each other due to gravity. We can’t, however, determine what gravity is, how gravity works, why gravity has a mathematical relationship, or what causes gravity in the first place. We can use the law to determine when Mars will be in what position so we can land robots on it, but we still have no idea why it works.
Theories
Theory – a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena:
Dictionary Definition of Theory
In contrast with a law, a theory is both the observation and a well tested explanation for why it is that way. A theory can also provide equations to show how the observed phenomenon relate to each other. Oftentimes, the theory is put to test by others in the scientific field to rigorously test it and ensure that they can find no problems with it. If problems are found, the theory might be discarded or modified to account for those cases. Once significant testing has occurred, and no major issues are found, it may become accepted by the scientific community.
Some theories have been around for decades, if not centuries, and are well accepted by the scientific community. Others are new and compete to provide the best explanation of a phenomenon. If a new theory provides a better explanation for a phenomenon than an older one, the new one supersedes the old one. It is not a bad thing when this happens. To see a list of superseded theories, check out this wikipedia page.
Conclusion
Knowing how to approach the world with a scientific mindset is a good skill to have. When you can assess how likely it is that someone’s conclusion is correct based on their methodology, especially if you can examine their work, you can draw more conclusions about the world that are true. This allows you to better interact with the world in ways that make sense and work.
It’s important that science requires verifiable claims that can be tested. All majorly accepted scientific theories have undergone rigorous testing to ensure they are good explanations for what they claim to describe. When making a claim about the correctness or incorrectness of a claim, they do not argue from an acclaimed place of authority. Instead, they argue by showing the facts and methodology to verify or refute a claim.