:yawn:
So aside from the usual haphazard whinging, whining, "it wasn't me honest" nonsense posts, it appears most all have finally relented re the Scientific method being the basic foundation of science.
That's nice.
My views on these matters are pretty much the same as they were at the beginning of the thread.
I basically agree with DMOE's first post and don't think that there's anything wrong with using the phrase 'scientific methods' (plural). I don't think that doing so is even all that controversial, apart from right here on Sciforums.
The University of California at Berkeley webpage that DMOE originally quoted says, "Misconception: There is a single Scientific Method that all scientists follow."
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/teaching/misconceptions.php
Another page from the
'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences') quoted in a subsequent post says:
"Rather than following a single scientific method, scientists use a body of methods particular to their work. Some of these methods are permanent features of the scientific community; others evolve over time or vary from discipline include all of the techniques and principles that scientists apply in their work and in their dealings with other scientists. Thus, they encompass not only the information scientists possess about the empirical world but the knowledge scientists have about how to acquire such information."
National Academy of Sciences
Pretty much everyone has seemingly agreed that no single step-by-step 'cook-book' methodological algorithm exists to which all good and proper science must necessarily conform, a single unique procedure that distinguishes science from all of the rest of human cognition.
What science does have is logical and epistemological foundations. I've called them 'common sense' and argued that they have been present in human cognition since probably before anatomically modern humans existed.
Another word that's often applied to this kind of thing is 'reason'. The
'Oxford Guide to Philosophy's' article on 'reasoning' says (p. 791) -
"If you are confronted by a practical problem ('What should I do in this matter?') or a theoretical problem ('What is the truth in this matter?'), or a response problem ('How should I feel on this matter?'), solving it is bound to involve some cogitation, however perfunctory: you must bring to mind further questions that seem relevant to solving the problem, you must ponder ('weigh') their relevance, and, if you have answers to them, you must finally derive (work out, calculate) a solution 'in the light of' the answers. Any answers you lack may be worth trying to discover, either by further cogitation (e.g. proving a lemma in mathematics) or by gathering information. The latter is where research comes in: ask someone, go and look, devise an experiment, etc."
The article goes on to discuss many more issues such as how sound reasoning is distinguished from faulty reasoning, the role of logic in that, how the results of reasoning are presented to others, and so on.
My opinion (it's certainly not unique to or original with me) is that scientific reasoning is just a much more highly specialized and technical application of reasoning in general.
So...
If everyone is willing to agree that the 'Scientific Method' isn't a single defined procedure or algorithm, then why call it the "scientific
Method"?
And if everyone is willing to agree that the 'Scientific Method' isn't unique to science, then why call it the "
Scientific method"?