Post by qmarx on Feb 4, 2009 6:00:14 GMT
"The logical statements entered into the notebook are broken down into six categories: (1) statement of the problem, (2) hypotheses as to the cause of the problem, (3) experiments designed to test each hypothesis, (4) predicted results of the experiments, (5) observed results of the experiments, and (6) conclusions from the results of the experiments. This is not different from the formal arrangement of many college and high-school lab. notebooks, but the purpose here is no longer just busywork. The purpose now is precise guidance of thoughts that will fail if they are not accurate.
The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know. There's not a mechanic or scientist or technician alive who hasn't suffered from that one so much that he's not instinctively on guard. That's the main reason why so much scientific and mechanical information sounds so dull and so cautious. If you get careless or go romanticizing scientific information, giving it a flourish here and there, Nature will soon make a complete fool out of you. It does it often enough anyway even when you don't give it opportunities. One must be extremely careful and rigidly logical when dealing with Nature: one logical slip and an entire scientific edifice comes tumbling down. One false deduction about the machine and you can get hung up indefinitely. "
"A motorcycle mechanic, on the other hand, who honks the horn to see if the battery works is informally conducting a true scientific experiment. He is testing a hypothesis by putting a question to nature. The TV scientist who mutters sadly "The experiment is a failure, we have failed to achieve what we had hoped for" is suffering mainly from a bad scriptwriter. An experiment never fails solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails to adequately test the hypothesis in question; when the data it produces don't prove anything one way or the other."
"Actually I've never seen a cycle-maintenance problem complex enough really to require full-scale formal scientific method. Repair problems are not that hard. When I think of formal scientific method an image sometimes comes to mind of an enormous juggernaut, a huge bulldozer...slow, tedious lumbering, laborious, but invincible. It takes twice as long, five times as long, maybe a dozen times as long as informal mechanic's techniques, but you know in the end you're going to get it. There's no fault isolation problem in motorcycle maintenance that can stand up to it. When you've hit a really tough one, tried everything, racked your brain and nothing works, and you know that this time Nature has really decided to be difficult, you say, "Okay, Nature, that's the end of the nice guy," and you crank up the formal scientific method. "
-Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Basically, I disagree with the whole "no scientific process can explain it" schtick.
I mean
www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=514
BANG! They just conducted a scientific experiment right there.
Problem: Need to assess Antimony's psychic abilities.
Hypothesis: Annie has a larger-than normal psychic talent
Experiment: Have her use a blinker stone, and watch to see how far her vision radius is.
Predicted result: Her line of sight will be longer than usual
Observed result: It is, by quite far
Conclusion: She is indeed a natural psychic.
Don't say science can't explain it when you just used science yourself. It only makes you a hypocrite.
The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know. There's not a mechanic or scientist or technician alive who hasn't suffered from that one so much that he's not instinctively on guard. That's the main reason why so much scientific and mechanical information sounds so dull and so cautious. If you get careless or go romanticizing scientific information, giving it a flourish here and there, Nature will soon make a complete fool out of you. It does it often enough anyway even when you don't give it opportunities. One must be extremely careful and rigidly logical when dealing with Nature: one logical slip and an entire scientific edifice comes tumbling down. One false deduction about the machine and you can get hung up indefinitely. "
"A motorcycle mechanic, on the other hand, who honks the horn to see if the battery works is informally conducting a true scientific experiment. He is testing a hypothesis by putting a question to nature. The TV scientist who mutters sadly "The experiment is a failure, we have failed to achieve what we had hoped for" is suffering mainly from a bad scriptwriter. An experiment never fails solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails to adequately test the hypothesis in question; when the data it produces don't prove anything one way or the other."
"Actually I've never seen a cycle-maintenance problem complex enough really to require full-scale formal scientific method. Repair problems are not that hard. When I think of formal scientific method an image sometimes comes to mind of an enormous juggernaut, a huge bulldozer...slow, tedious lumbering, laborious, but invincible. It takes twice as long, five times as long, maybe a dozen times as long as informal mechanic's techniques, but you know in the end you're going to get it. There's no fault isolation problem in motorcycle maintenance that can stand up to it. When you've hit a really tough one, tried everything, racked your brain and nothing works, and you know that this time Nature has really decided to be difficult, you say, "Okay, Nature, that's the end of the nice guy," and you crank up the formal scientific method. "
-Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Basically, I disagree with the whole "no scientific process can explain it" schtick.
I mean
www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=514
BANG! They just conducted a scientific experiment right there.
Problem: Need to assess Antimony's psychic abilities.
Hypothesis: Annie has a larger-than normal psychic talent
Experiment: Have her use a blinker stone, and watch to see how far her vision radius is.
Predicted result: Her line of sight will be longer than usual
Observed result: It is, by quite far
Conclusion: She is indeed a natural psychic.
Don't say science can't explain it when you just used science yourself. It only makes you a hypocrite.