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The distinctive thing about science is rather that you must answer the question "what do you know and how do you know it" with evidence, derived from repeatable
by pjlegato 10y ago
The distinctive thing about science is rather that you must answer the question "what do you know and how do you know it" with evidence, derived from repeatable experiments.
Other modes of thinking do not have this requirement, and often rely upon nothing more than "it seems to me..." to answer those questions.
- tnecniv 10y agoRight, but that applies to other fields as well. You might not be able to do repeatable experiments as a historian, but if you don't back your argument with factual evidence from a variety of sources, you will get laughed out of the room.
- pjscott 10y agoRepeatable? Sorry in advance for quibbling, but -- suppose that a star goes nova, and you weren't expecting it, but you happen to have telescopes gathering interesting data from this once-in-a-stellar-lifetime event. If you learn interesting things from it, is that science? I'd say yes, but this isn't repeatable. It's also not really an experiment. It's wonderful evidence, though, really priceless stuff that you couldn't get any other way. What is the essence of science? I'm not convinced that it involves repeatability or experimentation in any really fundamental way.
- vacri 10y agoIt's science, but not scientific method. The two are related but different. It's an observation that is rigorously recorded, but not an experiment. Science is full of this stuff - look at the field of taxonomy, for example. The idea that only those concepts which have been experimentally tested against the null hypothesis can be labelled 'science' goes against both reason and the spirit of the term.
- Avshalom 10y agoYeah I've opined about this a couple times here. But yeah I don't like "experiments" either. I like data, I like observation; experiments are just a way to control the rate we gather those observations, gather that data, instead of (and I did astronomy as an undergrad so I am particularly sympathetic to this field of examples) hoping a star explodes while you're looking at it. Gamma Ray Bursts are a great example of things we spent decades pretty much just hoping we'd be looking at when they happened. And there's weird one offs that we're basically just guessing on. But we build better instruments and make better observations and gather more data.
- snowwrestler 10y agoYes, repeatable. The specific event of that nova will not be repeated, of course, but the interesting observations, when compared with existing theory, will suggest repeatable experiments. And that's where the science really gets done. Not in the initial observation, but in the controlled experiments that follow, in which individual hypotheses can be tested. Experiments do not need to be run in a lab, BTW. As long as the variables are accounted for, natural observations are just as valid as those that are synthesized in a lab. One of the most famous "experiments" in physics history was the observation of gravity-deflected star images during an eclipse, which helped support Einstein's general theory of relativity.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago> derived from repeatable experiments. And this is why astronomy, geology, and paleontology are not sciences, and it's not looking too good for climatology or oceanography or meteorology.