Scientific Method
Last modified: April 6, 2017
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The scientific method is learning about the cause and effect relationships in nature through experimentation, observations and analysing the data to prove their hypothesis.
The scientific method normally consists of six steps: formulation of a thesis question, conducting a background research to find out the history and important factors of the question already brought out by other researchers, constructing a hypothesis, doing an experiment to test the hypothesis, collecting and analysing the data from the results of the experiment to reach a conclusion and publicising the conclusion so that others may benefit by it.
The scientific method is also characterised by conducting the experiment with only one variable factor, so that the results obtained are truer and repeatable and testing this result with a ‘control’ experiment that is exactly similar to the actual experiment except for the particular variable, so that the results are proved correct.
If the hypothesis proved true by the experiment, it may be given the status of a theory, model or law of nature. If, however, the experiments do not substantiate the hypothesis, then it has to be either completely rejected or revised. The chief characteristic of the scientific method is its predictive power or the ability to get more out of the theory than is put in (Barrow, 1991) of the hypothesis or theory, as tested by experiment. In fact, it is often said in science that “theories can never be proved, only disproved”. This is because there are new observations and experiments being conducted all the time that could produced newer conflicting theories that are dissimilar to the long-standing theory.
A few terms used in the scientific method are further explained:
Hypothesis is the idea or explanation that is being tested through the experiment and is merely a statement that uses a few observations. Theory, on the other hand, is based on the experimental evidences and observations Theory can be applied to proofs that are not linked directly and also to new associations. Theories could change when new evidences are uncovered by later experiments and observations. Models are also scientific statements that have been proved by experiments. However, the scientific basis of models is only applicable under limited conditions and cannot be uniformly repeated under all environments with the same results. Law is the ultimate result of the experiment that has been repeatedly proved over time. Law does not change and is capable of generating accurate estimates for different conditions. Thus law is uniform and stable and universal in its nature.
An inquiring mind, the scientific method and a scientific temper are the most important attributes for any research and researcher. When it comes to writing a term paper, you can make use of our academic writing help to buy a research paper in scientific research subjects, just order one from our custom essays service. Our professional writing services is ready to write custom papers on the topics of your choice.
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