There
are four steps to the scientific method. They are;
1. Observation
of phenomenon.
2. Formulation
of a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon.
3. Use
of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena.
4. Performance
of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters
and properly performed experiments.
I
interviewed two scientists and asked them if they use the scientific method. I asked
Dr. Wendy Burns and Dr. Joseph Sinski.
Dr. Burns said she does not use the scientific method as taught
but a version of it. She gets her ideas by reading scientific research or
talking with other scientists. After she gets an idea of what she wants to
research, she looks at the scientific research and sees what other people have
done. That prevents her from copying someone else’s research. She also used the
scientific research to find out what type of experiments people are doing and
how they interpret the results. Then she does experiments on her specific
topics.
Dr. Sinski does use the scientific method. He says it is like common
sense for him. If he starts a new project, he looks for anything interesting he
can find out about a system. Then he thinks about what is interesting in the
thing or situation. Then he starts to take what he finds interesting about the
thing or situation and tries to propose a reason the interesting thing or
situation is so. Then he plans to test the interesting thing or situation. Depending
on his results, he either does more experiments to show how he proved his guess
about the interesting thing or subject.
I was surprised to find that Dr. Burns doesn’t use the exact scientific
method. If I do more research and interviews, I may find that more people are
like her and do not use it. It is surprising to me because I was taught that
this is how all scientists to their experiments.
Reference: "Introduction
to the Scientific Method." Home Page of F. L. H. Wolfs. N.p., n.d. Web. 23
Sept. 2013. <http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs
Although you were surprised that Dr. Burns does not follow the exact scientific method, I believe that this is an extremely common occurrence. It is difficult to follow the scientific method to a T because there are so many obstacles along the way. An example that my high school science teacher gave me is that she may pose a question, but through experimentation she will decide to change it. I think that it is possibly rarer for a scientist to follow the scientific method directly in modern times.
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