What is the “scientific method” and can you point to an important scientific discovery made in history that used this method and only this method? Of course, I am asking for an actual historical event, not a rational reconstruction of a historical event.
Obviously, my question is rhetorical and is meant to point out that any such method is far from “mechanistic”.
Obviously, my question is rhetorical and is meant to point out that any such method is far from “mechanistic”.
I would say Einstein’s prediction of the bending of light around the sun was such an example.
Note that I’m only claiming that the actual method of deciding between theories must be mechanistic. The process Einstein followed to obtain the theory was far from mechanistic.
I’m sympathetic to the idea that science is much messier when it’s actually being done than it appears in retrospect. But I think it’s critical to have a mechanistic principle for choosing theories, even if in practice theories are chosen by disheveled grad students while playing beer pong. Because those grad students are kept honest by the fact that if they humanistically choose the wrong theory, someone will eventually show up and prove them wrong using the mechanistic principle.
What is the “scientific method” and can you point to an important scientific discovery made in history that used this method and only this method? Of course, I am asking for an actual historical event, not a rational reconstruction of a historical event.
Obviously, my question is rhetorical and is meant to point out that any such method is far from “mechanistic”.
I would say Einstein’s prediction of the bending of light around the sun was such an example.
Note that I’m only claiming that the actual method of deciding between theories must be mechanistic. The process Einstein followed to obtain the theory was far from mechanistic.
I’m sympathetic to the idea that science is much messier when it’s actually being done than it appears in retrospect. But I think it’s critical to have a mechanistic principle for choosing theories, even if in practice theories are chosen by disheveled grad students while playing beer pong. Because those grad students are kept honest by the fact that if they humanistically choose the wrong theory, someone will eventually show up and prove them wrong using the mechanistic principle.