Portal:Scientific method

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The Scientific Method Portal

Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, there are features that distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of developing knowledge. Scientific researchers propose specific hypotheses as explanations of natural phenomena, and design experimental studies that test these predictions for accuracy. Any hypothesis that cannot be subjected to a test is not considered to be scientific. These steps are repeated to refine hypotheses and allow for increasingly dependable predictions of future results. Theories that encompass whole domains of inquiry serve to bind more specific hypotheses together into logically coherent wholes. This in turn aids in the formation of new hypotheses, as well as in placing groups of specific hypotheses into a broader context of understanding.

Another facet shared by the various fields of scientific inquiry is that the process must be objective so that the scientist does not bias the interpretation of the results. There is also an expectation that scientists document all of their data and methodology for careful scrutiny by other scientists and researchers. Most scientific journals and grant agencies require a well documented set of data to be archived. This allows other researchers to conduct statistical measures of the reliability of the results and to verify results by attempting to replicate them.

More about the Scientific method...

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Selected method

Methods

Working backward from the goal.

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Did you know

... that John Stuart Mill's canons form a systematic heuristic for debugging a problem?

Method of agreement: If a single common factor exists in all cases where a phenomenon occurs, then we can attribute the phenomenon to that factor.
Method of difference: If one set of circumstances leads to a given phenomenon, and another set of circumstances does not, and the sets differ only in a single factor that is present in the first set but not in the second, then the phenomenon can be attributed to that factor.
Method of agreement and difference: Also called simply the "joint method of agreement and difference", this principle simply represents the application of the methods of agreement and difference.
Method of residues: If a range of factors are believed to cause a range of phenomena, and we have matched all the factors, except one, with all the phenomena, except one, then the remaining phenomenon can be attributed to the remaining factor: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." — Sherlock Holmes in "A Scandal in Bohemia" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Method of concomitant variations: If across a range of circumstances leading to a phenomenon, some property of the phenomenon varies in tandem with some factor existing in the circumstances, then the phenomenon can be attributed to that factor. For instance, suppose that various samples of water, each containing both salt and lead, were found to be toxic. If the level of toxicity varied in tandem with the level of lead, one could attribute the toxicity to the presence of lead.