I’m acquainted with the scientific method myself, but when I try to explain it to science deniers I always fall short of capturing what makes it such a universal and thorough method. Any help?
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My wife is a biology teacher, and she has the following quote hanging in her room: “Science is the orderly accumulation of discarded hypotheses.” I forget the author. Regardless, the point is that we gradually learn what is true by learning what is false. Every idea in science—no matter how foundational—is subject to reexamination. The scientific method is the means by which we determine if something is false. Scientific consensus is the the scientific community’s best current explanation of phenomena based on our knowledge of what the explanation can’t be.
* Come up with a thought
* Come up with a way to test your thought
* Run the test.
* Did the test prove that your thought was wrong? Oh well, the end.
* Does it look like your thought may be correct? Neat! If so, then…
* Tell other people about your thought, and tell them about how you tested it, and tell them that it looked like you were correct.
* Now they can test it too! *<– This is the “universal” part*
* If someone proves your thought wrong, then…oh well! Guess you were wrong.
* If *no one* can prove that your thought was wrong, then it looks like you’ve just added something new to science! Yay!
* If someone comes along years later and discovers something new that proves you were wrong, then *still yay* because we’ve learned something new!
My wife is a biology teacher, and she has the following quote hanging in her room: “Science is the orderly accumulation of discarded hypotheses.” I forget the author. Regardless, the point is that we gradually learn what is true by learning what is false. Every idea in science—no matter how foundational—is subject to reexamination. The scientific method is the means by which we determine if something is false. Scientific consensus is the the scientific community’s best current explanation of phenomena based on our knowledge of what the explanation can’t be.
My wife is a biology teacher, and she has the following quote hanging in her room: “Science is the orderly accumulation of discarded hypotheses.” I forget the author. Regardless, the point is that we gradually learn what is true by learning what is false. Every idea in science—no matter how foundational—is subject to reexamination. The scientific method is the means by which we determine if something is false. Scientific consensus is the the scientific community’s best current explanation of phenomena based on our knowledge of what the explanation can’t be.
I find the biggest confusion science deniers have is the word “theory”.
They have heard someone using it colloquially and assume that’s what scientists mean when they say the Theory of something. That it is just a best guess and that one day it will become fact.
But that’s not what Theory is in science. Theory is the final and most proven step an idea can be. You go to school to learn Theory. The Theory is what is universally accepted to be more true than anything else. To become theory, an idea needs to be tested, retested and scrutinized. It isn’t one person’s thoughts. It is collective agreement of all scientific humankind.
Theory *can* change. But it isn’t a guess. If someone says, “It’s just a theory”, they may as well be saying, “It’s just the most proven and accepted thing we know.”.
No gravity isn’t “just a theory”. Neither is evolution or relativity.
I find the biggest confusion science deniers have is the word “theory”.
They have heard someone using it colloquially and assume that’s what scientists mean when they say the Theory of something. That it is just a best guess and that one day it will become fact.
But that’s not what Theory is in science. Theory is the final and most proven step an idea can be. You go to school to learn Theory. The Theory is what is universally accepted to be more true than anything else. To become theory, an idea needs to be tested, retested and scrutinized. It isn’t one person’s thoughts. It is collective agreement of all scientific humankind.
Theory *can* change. But it isn’t a guess. If someone says, “It’s just a theory”, they may as well be saying, “It’s just the most proven and accepted thing we know.”.
No gravity isn’t “just a theory”. Neither is evolution or relativity.
I find the biggest confusion science deniers have is the word “theory”.
They have heard someone using it colloquially and assume that’s what scientists mean when they say the Theory of something. That it is just a best guess and that one day it will become fact.
But that’s not what Theory is in science. Theory is the final and most proven step an idea can be. You go to school to learn Theory. The Theory is what is universally accepted to be more true than anything else. To become theory, an idea needs to be tested, retested and scrutinized. It isn’t one person’s thoughts. It is collective agreement of all scientific humankind.
Theory *can* change. But it isn’t a guess. If someone says, “It’s just a theory”, they may as well be saying, “It’s just the most proven and accepted thing we know.”.
No gravity isn’t “just a theory”. Neither is evolution or relativity.
I think the [WP article on the SM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) is pretty thorough and much more friendly than, say, a [full philosophical treatment](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/), so I recommend reading the former and asking questions if you get stuck.
(That article is what should guide you in how to explain this to your friends. This next bit is for you, and can maybe inform the Q&A and make you ready for counterpoints.)
I want to caution that scientists don’t actually *use* the idealized scientific method, with *very few* exceptions. The practice of real science ranges from a little to extremely messy, and when it’s done correctly it is more of a process of convergence on truth rather than straightforward deduction. (In fact, if an experiment looks like it followed the textbook scientific method and led to a deductive conclusion, you can 99% bet that they ran the experiment 100 times beforehand, most likely before even writing their grant proposal, until they “got it right”.) (By the way, that latter phrase, “got it right”, is a hint at something especially problematic in the current practical philosophy of science.)
The form of how science is pursued is also different depending on one’s field of research and on the particular project. Most idealizations of the scientific method don’t talk about natural versus real-world versus laboratory experiments, or refinement of mathematics, separation of empirical and a priori laws, the in-person interviews one might have to do with test subjects, the political wrangling that may be necessary to implement one’s desired methodology in the first place (and scientific or ethical trade-offs this may involve), etc. etc..
I think the [WP article on the SM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) is pretty thorough and much more friendly than, say, a [full philosophical treatment](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/), so I recommend reading the former and asking questions if you get stuck.
(That article is what should guide you in how to explain this to your friends. This next bit is for you, and can maybe inform the Q&A and make you ready for counterpoints.)
I want to caution that scientists don’t actually *use* the idealized scientific method, with *very few* exceptions. The practice of real science ranges from a little to extremely messy, and when it’s done correctly it is more of a process of convergence on truth rather than straightforward deduction. (In fact, if an experiment looks like it followed the textbook scientific method and led to a deductive conclusion, you can 99% bet that they ran the experiment 100 times beforehand, most likely before even writing their grant proposal, until they “got it right”.) (By the way, that latter phrase, “got it right”, is a hint at something especially problematic in the current practical philosophy of science.)
The form of how science is pursued is also different depending on one’s field of research and on the particular project. Most idealizations of the scientific method don’t talk about natural versus real-world versus laboratory experiments, or refinement of mathematics, separation of empirical and a priori laws, the in-person interviews one might have to do with test subjects, the political wrangling that may be necessary to implement one’s desired methodology in the first place (and scientific or ethical trade-offs this may involve), etc. etc..
I think the [WP article on the SM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) is pretty thorough and much more friendly than, say, a [full philosophical treatment](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/), so I recommend reading the former and asking questions if you get stuck.
(That article is what should guide you in how to explain this to your friends. This next bit is for you, and can maybe inform the Q&A and make you ready for counterpoints.)
I want to caution that scientists don’t actually *use* the idealized scientific method, with *very few* exceptions. The practice of real science ranges from a little to extremely messy, and when it’s done correctly it is more of a process of convergence on truth rather than straightforward deduction. (In fact, if an experiment looks like it followed the textbook scientific method and led to a deductive conclusion, you can 99% bet that they ran the experiment 100 times beforehand, most likely before even writing their grant proposal, until they “got it right”.) (By the way, that latter phrase, “got it right”, is a hint at something especially problematic in the current practical philosophy of science.)
The form of how science is pursued is also different depending on one’s field of research and on the particular project. Most idealizations of the scientific method don’t talk about natural versus real-world versus laboratory experiments, or refinement of mathematics, separation of empirical and a priori laws, the in-person interviews one might have to do with test subjects, the political wrangling that may be necessary to implement one’s desired methodology in the first place (and scientific or ethical trade-offs this may involve), etc. etc..
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