Overview of The Scientific Method

Science remains one of those areas in which many people remain unfamiliar. Science is not an entity; neither is it a monolithic organization of same-thinking people. Science is a method by which we human beings explain the natural world around us. Science uses observations, critical thinking and experimentation to come to conclusions about how and why certain natural events occur, have occurred, or will occur. In order to understand better how science works, it is necessary to review something called The Scientific Method.

In any area of science, the scientific method is used to answer questions people have about their world. Science does not attempt to answer questions pertaining to beliefs or absolute thruths, which are subjective, although at times it can show that commonly held ideas about beliefs may or may not be correct, such as those who believe that flies originate from rotting organic matter. Science was able to prove that flies originate from eggs laid by a female fly upon discarded organic matter, not that flies sprung up from the matter itself. The proof of this was demonstrated, and can still be demonstrated today, by doing an experiment.

There are certain steps involved in the scientific method that help us answer the basic questions we ask. But it all begins with a curious mind asking a question. So let's use the example above as our starting point. A scientists observes that flies seem to come from a pile of vegetable garbage outside her home. She asks why do flies come from there? She begins to do some background research, observing that indeed flies do appear at regular intervals coming from the garbage. This occurs in warmer months, not in colder months. The flies generally all appear to be very small, but eventually become adult flies. Her eyes do not see any eggs, and let's say she has no idea whether or not flies lay eggs or what they might look like.

So, our undaunted scientist decides to construct a hypothesis. She determines that it appears as if flies are created by rotting vegetables in her backyard. So, she sets up a pile of rotting garbage and awaits to see what happens. Over the next few weeks she sees adult flies on the garbage, and some time after that, new tiny flies appear. She could then decide that indeed flies are generated by rotting garbage, or she may decide that her original hypothesis needs some alteration because there might be some variables she had not originally taken into account.

For example, adult flies were on the garbage before the infant flies appeared. Does this change or alter her experiment? She decides it does and so sets up a closed experiment, placing the garbage inside of a sealed container, where no adult flies can get to it. Then, over time she watches and discovers that no infant flies appear, even after months of observation. She then decides to change her hypothesis so that it appears that flies do not appear from garbage without the adult flies appearing first.

The new hypothesis is that adult flies have something to do with the appearance of infant flies in the garbage. So, she then decides it's time to use a microscope and see if the adult flies change or alter in any way the garbage, so that infant flies can be produced. She again sets up her experiment, with one sealed container of garbage, which she carefully studies under her microscope, and another open container of garbage, which is also examined under her scope. She makes slides of the original garbage and sets them aside.

After several weeks infant flies again appear on the open container, and the scientist again examines the garbage and discovers tiny crawling things, which over the next few days become infant flies. She sees actual fly eggs which turn into the tiny crawling things, which then become infant flies.

In the sealed container, none of this activity takes place. The garbage simply rots but no flies appear.

From these observations, which scientists call experiments, she concludes that flies only appear from eggs of adult flies that have been laid upon the open container of garbage. No flies are created by the sealed container of garbage and therefore flies are not produced by garbage but rather that flies lay eggs on garbage and these eggs grow into actual flies.

This stage is called analyzing the data. Now she publishes a report that includes her methodology, how she did this experiment from start to finish, the steps she took, the findings she encountered, and so forth. Peers review the paper, perhaps conducting experiments of their own, and either they agree with the results or find flaws which the original scientists had not seen. If flaws are found, the experiments are done once more, correcting for the flaws, and the results are once more analyzed, perhaps by many scientists working individually, or by teams of scientists trying to discover either the falseness of the hypothesis or that the hypothesis is supported by the data discovered and reported.

If the hypothesis is found to be supported by the data as originally stated, and it has been proven by experiments by independent individual or teams of scientists, it is on its way to becoming a scientific theory, which in this case states that adult flies lay eggs which grow into new flies. Flies do not come solely from rotting garbage.

Of course the experiments could be altered in other ways, such as using rotting meat, rotting vegetables, rotting paper, end so forth. But the conclusions should be the same, that flies only come from the eggs laid by adult female flies on whichever material is used. If ever flies are produced without the presence of adult flies laying eggs, then the entire hypothesis is deemed false, and the experiment showing this new data is further examined to make sure it was conducted correctly, that no fly eggs were accidentally introduced anywhere in the process, and so forth. that is, experiments which overturn a carefully and widely accepted hypothesis or theory must be completely examined for any flaws, much as the original hypothesis was when it was first proposed.

Now this experiment is rather basic, and anyone can prove to themselves that it is true. Louis Pasteur did this kind of experiment when he discovered the cause of rabies, which until then was thought to be caused by other means than the rabies virus. That was a mere 150 years ago, by the way, and until then it was widely believed that illnesses were caused by either some demonic influences, or by bad air, or some other cause. And these ideas were accepted because at that time few people looking at these questions had the background to know how to experiment and discover the real causes.

The scientific method itself is also rather new, coming out of the great scientific awakening of the late 1900's. when it was accepted as the best known way to conduct experiments and prove the results. Since then science has used this method to discover many of the things we take for granted in our world. Technology, medicine, geology, and all the sciences have been more or less created by using the scientific method to find ways to answer basic questions about how our world works.

And until now, it has worked rather well. No credible scientist, or even layman, once he or she understands how this works, has come up with a better way to conduct scientific discovery.

At times unscrupulous scientists try to get faulty data entered into the mainstream of science. There were cases of researchers using mice to prove points about skin grafting, but the peer review quickly identified the attempt as a ruse. The research was proven wrong and mostly ignored. The scientists in question were fired and are no longer working for any reputable science based organizations.

In the 1930s some scientists tried to prove that Caucasians were more intelligent than other human beings. Their facts were wrong, their data skewed and their research less than adequate to uphold their hypothesis. Unfortunately, some of their findings, unproven as they were, were used by Hitler to prove that so-called Aryans were superior to other humans beings. Under the wrong influences, deliberate attempts to use the scientific method have cause great harm in the world.

When one circumvents the purely scientific nature of discovery, and makes it a personal quest, one can lose sight of using the scientific method to weed out false hypotheses from the data-supported hypotheses, a sad situation which unfortunately continues to this day. When one attempts to prove a point scientifically without going through the scientific method process, the results become subject, rightly so, to intense denunciation. After all, it is the art of the con man to use trickery to fool the public, and the use of faulty, ill-prepared data to try to make a false hypothesis appear to be real is no better than the flim-flam man who seeks to steal money from others. Yet, since many people do not understand how the scientific method is used to separate bad science from good science, they are just as unaware as the victim of a scam as to how their "common sense" is being manipulated to lead to a false but entirely believable point.

Whether or not we are ever going to become scientists in the greater sense of the word, we are all scientists in our own way. It is important that everyone understand the basic process of the scientific method and not allow ourselves to be fooled by words and images that appear scientific, but are truly merely smoke and mirrors meant to fool us into believing in something that is neither scientific nor true.

Science can be used for the greater good, or the greater evil, and it is up to us to determine and certify that science is used only to work toward the good.  That means educating ourselves more about how science impacts our lives.