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The history of scientific method considers changes in the methodology of scientific inquiry, not the history of science itself. The development of rules for scientific reasoning has not been straightforward; scientific method has been the subject of intense and recurring debate throughout the history of science, and eminent natural philosophers and scientists have argued for the primacy of ...
A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that can be or that has been repeatedly tested and has corroborating evidence in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results.
A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess or thought. If a hypothesis is repeatedly independently demonstrated by experiment to be true, it becomes a scientific theory .
Observation in the natural sciences [1] is an act or instance of noticing or perceiving [2] and the acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses. In science, observation can also involve the perception and recording of data via the use of scientific instruments. The term may also refer to ...
It never says "Yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe", and in the great majority of cases simply "No". If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe", and if it does not agree it means "No". Probably every theory will someday experience its "No"—most theories, soon after conception. [25]
The English word theory derives from a technical term in philosophy in Ancient Greek.As an everyday word, theoria, θεωρία, meant "looking at, viewing, beholding", but in more technical contexts it came to refer to contemplative or speculative understandings of natural things, such as those of natural philosophers, as opposed to more practical ways of knowing things, like that of skilled ...
In the philosophy of science, observations are said to be "theory-laden" when they are affected by the theoretical presuppositions held by the investigator. The thesis of theory-ladenness is most strongly associated with the late 1950s and early 1960s work of Norwood Russell Hanson, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend, and was probably first put forth (at least implicitly) by Pierre Duhem about ...
A dogmatic falsificationist ignores that every observation is theory-impregnated. Being theory-impregnated means that it goes beyond direct experience. For example, the statement "Here is a glass of water" goes beyond experience, because the concepts of glass and water "denote physical bodies which exhibit a certain law-like behaviour" (Popper ...