What Is The Scientific Method And How Does It Work?
Without science we would not have reached the current level of development. Thanks to the scientific method, humanity has been creating great medical and technological advances and even the field of psychology, an aspect of reality that seemed too confusing and ambiguous to be analyzed, has developed to the point of allowing us to know well what is behind our actions and thoughts.
Nevertheless, What is the real reason why science has so much prestige? Where exactly does its value lie? And why is it necessary to use the scientific method for science to progress?
I will try to shed some light on the matter at hand starting with the root of the matter: the birth of science
The origins of science and its epistemology
During the 6th century, in Ionia (a part of ancient Greece located in modern-day Turkey), a world full of mysteries presented itself to the Hellenes. The starting point was a situation of almost total uncertainty, but little by little, based on the observation of nature, The ideas of an ordered and rational Universe emerged, susceptible to being analyzed
At first, a good part of the Greeks believed that reality was made up of a matter composed of an essence of which there was barely any knowledge, governed by the action of equal and opposite forces that were maintained in dramatic struggle, always remaining in an eternal balance. At that historical moment and from these concepts a primitive science (or protosciencesince more than experimenting he theorized) properly Greek.
The Renaissance brings the paradigm shift
It was not until the 16th century, with the arrival of the Renaissance in Europe, when A qualitative leap in scientific-technical knowledge began that would culminate in the 18th century AD with the Enlightenment
In this scientific revolution, many medieval prejudices that had been carried over (some) since ancient times were abandoned, and a concrete and effective method was consolidated to find out the truth: the scientific method, which would allow us to examine all aspects of nature in the best possible way
And why “scientific”?
Science and its method were not arrived at by chance, but by survival Primitive human civilization was always challenged by hecatombs of great magnitude (wars, floods, epidemics, etc.) that required a protocol that could give us reliability in the production of new knowledge to be able to face these adversities satisfactorily.
Thanks to the scientific method we could abandon the eternal paralysis produced by not understanding what is happening or what could happen in the future, since we began to have good reasons to think that something is true or false… although, ironically speaking, doubting is part of the scientific method and the skeptical spirit that accompanies it. In the words of American physicist Robert Oppenheimer:
“A scientist must take the freedom to raise any question, to doubt any statement, to correct errors.”
The role of the brain
But it is not only catastrophes that are the cause of the scientific method. One of the reasons for its birth is none other than our ability to reason, a miracle of evolution that enables us to avoid and resolve errors in logic, cognitive biases, and errors in perception. In short, we can see the logic of things because our brain is structured in a way that allows us to examine premises and arguments looking for consistency and coherence in them.
However, as relatively instinctive and emotional animals that we are, the level of cognitive abilities necessary to be absolutely skeptical and rational (someone who knows how to perfectly recognize and organize ideas and theories to detect defects in them) is impossible even for the more cultured and intelligent people. That is why science is, in part, a shared project based on the consensus of many experts and specialists who offer their different points of view.
From what has been said above, it follows that science is not done by four geniuses or enlightened individuals (the opposite would be making scientific knowledge rely entirely on a fallacy of authority). On the contrary, is the result of collective cooperation: the so-called scientific community
Scientific knowledge is built on previous knowledge, investing decades of research throughout which numerous experiments are carried out (the proof of double-blind, for example) and hypotheses and theories are proposed. In fact, scientific procedure is so collective that scientists often ask their professional colleagues (the scientific community) to review possible errors in their studies (even if this means that their alleged discoveries are denied). This has the advantage that the more scientists investigating, the more likely they are to find errors in previous research and conclusions
Pursuing scientific objectivity
It is clear that absolute objectivity does not exist even in the hard sciences, but that does not mean that it cannot be taken as a reference or an ideal. That is why another of the pragmatic characteristics of the scientific procedure is to delegate responsibilities in research and elaboration of hypotheses to auxiliary scientists who are not emotionally involved in the project.
In this way, greater objectivity is ensured; essential characteristic of all science. These auxiliary scientists repeat the experiments and compare and analyze the information obtained because any statement or sentence that claims to have the infallible seal of scientific quality must be able to be refuted or demonstrated by someone outside the project.
Would anyone believe a doctor who claims to have found the gift of immortality without giving the option for others to verify if he is right? In some ways it is a matter of common sense.
The media have great importance in scientific development When television, for example, tells us that researchers from some university have discovered something, what they really want to express (perhaps in an unpedagogical way) is that said research is far from finished, because its conclusions must be subject to repeated checks before having a good level of acceptance.
It is at this point that other professional colleagues must verify the accuracy of such statements. After an exhaustive selection and correct arbitration, if the study is still valid, it will be considered that the empirical evidence in favor of the hypothesis that has been proposed is robust and serves to explain a phenomenon well.
In this way, humanity will have advanced one step further. Step that may need to be reviewed in the future to continue advancing, since the scientific method always leaves the door open to a reformulation of theories; The opposite would be falling into a dogma.
Pseudosciences, sciences that are not really sciences
Unfortunately, sometimes we make the mistake of developing pseudoscientific hypotheses which as they are proposed cannot be worked through the scientific method.
And what is pseudoscience? Pseudoscience is a belief or practice that is presented as science but does not follow a reliable scientific method, ergo it cannot be verified. It is usually characterized by ambiguous, contradictory and unspecific statements where the use of fallacies and exaggerations is the order of the day.
In pseudosciences there is a dependence on confirmation but never on refutation evidence, not to mention the lack of willingness to collaborate with the scientific community so that it can evaluate the situation. In short, if we sometimes fall into propositions, unintentionally pseudoscientific, let’s imagine what level of development we would have if our knowledge about nature was only based on these types of statements. It is in this comparison where all the value of science lies: in its usefulness
