Talk:Scientific method/Draft

Revert

I reverted the work of Gareth Leng. Altough it is a nice work, I think it is too poetic. The earlier version was more factual.

--Matthias Brendel 16:44, 26 December 2006 (CST)

Just as an example. The first sentence I find very bad is "This simple account begs many questions. What do we mean by ‘facts’? "

1) This is out of the blue, since the "facts" were not mentioned before. So how does the kknowtion of "facts" come here? 2) Then there is an unnecessary dispute about how we can trust facts. We should not start to explain the scientific method by this dispute. 3) The dispute about the basis of scientific knowledge was repeated later as the protocol-sentence debate. So quoting here Bacon is very outdated. If somebody wants to present this question, then let him quote the latest accounts on this! Even the protocol-sentence debate is outdfate I think.

--Matthias Brendel 16:52, 26 December 2006 (CST)

This I think is not how we work at Citizendium. We do not bulk revert in this way, but gain consensus civilly and seek understanding. In particular, this is a new CZ article in progress, and it is replacing a deeply flawed ungainly repetetive and inaccurate WP version (Bayesian inference is not a way of generating hypotheses; Einstein's theory was indeed a refutation of Newton's, and the idea that it represented progress was questioned by Kuhn, who commented that Einstein's theory was closer to Aristotle's than either was to Newton; alchemy was characterised by very precise measurements; Lakatos is unexplained but introduced as though he was a Kuhnian when in fact he was a Popperian etc etc). As for the lead, facts refers directly to the introductory quote from Darwin. Understanding the nature of facts, and how they depend on a theory, is central to the understanding of the importance of theory in science and hence to understanding the incommensurability of theory. Gareth Leng 17:04, 26 December 2006 (CST)

So you just write a new article instead of an existing. This is also a reverting. And your version is just your opinion, there are serious NPOV errors in your article. All of ypour statements here are dispoted by seroius thinkers. You even mention Kuhn. Lakatos was not a Popperian. So I just se a deeply flawed article.

--Matthias Brendel 06:22, 15 January 2007 (CST)

I am "rollingback" this article to the version Dr. Gareth Leng wrote. I base this decision on the fact that Mr./Dr. Brendel used a reversion and a "semi-protection," to freeze this article in the form he preferred. As the template explains, such a semi-protection has the purpose of stopping vandalism, or anonymous, unregistered, or new users from editing an article. Dr. Leng is none of these. Nevertheless, this "semi-protection" is not functioning properly; it is stopping Dr. Leng from editing. Mr./Dr. Brendel, please do not use tools that are misfunctioning.

I do not want to see revert wars. You are both Editors. Please discuss a compromise.

Chief Constable, --Ruth Ifcher 00:00, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Many thanks Ruth. This is Citizendium, not Wikipedia; the article that Mathias reverted to is the Wikipedia article, I would certainly not arbitrarily revert original Citizendium contributions; this is vandalisn as is made clear in the policy document. I suggest therefore Mathias that you detail any specific criticisms of the Citizendium article here, perhaps starting with any dispute about any factual statements, any errors in repoting opinions, or any miscitations? If there are any, let's start by correcting those.Gareth Leng 05:38, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Matthias, we do value your contributions, but you are expected to work with people here, and not simply revert to a version you prefer. That may be all right on Wikipedia (it certainly wasn't in my day!), but it isn't here. Also, the name for our neutrality policy is not and never will be "NPOV" but "the neutrality policy." We are a different community. So I support Ruth Ifcher's action here as Chief Constable, which concerned the behavior of reverting wholesale, not the merits or demerits of any version of an article. I do hope you will work with us here, in any event! --Larry Sanger 12:14, 21 January 2007 (CST)

In my opinion there was a good article here present and Dr. Gareth Leng deleted it and just wrote his own version. If there was any vandalism here, then Dr Leng's action was the first one. If we should reach compromise, then (i) I wish to see that Gareth Leng incorporates the valuable content of the first article in his article, (ii) I wish that he formulates his article in a more neutral way. I will go into details if I see any readiness to compromise from Gareth Leng.

--Matthias Brendel 04:55, 22 January 2007 (CST)

To repeat, the article that I replaced was the old Wikipedia article, that remains on Wikipedia. This is Citizendium, and we have indeed now deleted all old Wikipedia articles. I'm happy to work with anyone constructively, and again suggest that we start with any dispute about any factual statements, any errors in reporting opinions, or any miscitations? If there are any, let's start by correcting those; I'm sure there will be some Gareth Leng 09:45, 22 January 2007 (CST)

I support Dr. Leng's position here, Matthias. He is correct that no Citizendian is obligated to use or develop the Wikipedia version; that's been made clear in several places. Unless you had worked here on CZ on the Wikipedia version of this article, then no one may insist that we adopt it, rather than Dr. Leng's, as a starting point. This we can say without even considering the merits of either article! --Larry Sanger 23:48, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Just a few thoughts

Hello. Being just an author I would like attract your attention to the reader's perspective. While in general I appreciate the idea of illustrating the "scientific method" by actual views of notable scientists, I suggest we consider the following:

• In the lead I would put a brief summary of the content. I think our concise definition could be somehow elaborated, explained and illustrated. I would put it instead of two citations (no problem, they can be used elsewhere).
• Feyerabend, although contemporary to Popper and Kuhn, and influential enough to be compared with them, gets a distinguished place in the introductory section (and is not described in the "main body" of the article). Does neutral view policy suggest that we treat the three philosophers "equally"?
• Overall style resembles an essay, especially introductorybeginning part; while otherwise it sounds quite interesting or even intriguing, maybe it could be more "encyclopedic", "assertive"?

Just few thoughts (but I can formulate more concrete/explicit propositions) Aleksander Halicz 17:12, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend just happen to be three prominent philosophers of science. There are many others. I doubt any particular philosopher should be mentioned in the introductory section, except as part of a longer list. --Larry Sanger 23:50, 22 January 2007 (CST)

I'm planning on hanging out here, so here's an intro

I'm newly arrived from Wikipedia where I've been working on the History of scientific method article. Regarding Wikipedia, that article is still where my interest lies, since the Scientific method article at Wikipedia is a kind of collage of common opinion without much in the way of citation. My own goal here will be to describe scientific method without having it become The Citizendium Scientific Method.

To get started straight away, I'm wondering whether to add a condensed history section to this article. I'm tempted instead to begin a separate article since my knowledge (and the existing Wikipedia history article), is incomplete. It would be nice to have a fuller picture before deciding to say anything about the history and development of scientific method in this article. --Christian Steinbach 02:17, 23 January 2007 (CST)

Either would be great; I'd certainly like to see a substantial History article developed; there are so many important threads that I think it will need space. I'd suggest writing a new article and then adding a short section to this that is a summary of /introduction to the main articleGareth Leng 07:49, 23 January 2007 (CST)

Restructuring and rewriting of the article

The Wikipedia article was better, then this article, because it vcontained some kind of SYSTEMATIC list of the elements of the scientific method. This articvel does not contain any such systematic list. You can read about a lot of arbitrary opinions, but you do not get an idea, what is the scientific method, which is accepted. You do not get the neutral point of view, the view, which is accepted by most of the philosophers of science and scientists.

The Wikipedia article was better in this respect.

The other problem with this article is, that it contains some unsignificant quotations, like of " Sir Peter Medawar" who cares about his opinion? Why is that important? Charles Darwin and Carl Sagan are good scientists, but I would not quote their opinion either.

And why is this important at all? " Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals [509 U.S. 579 (1993)] decision,"

On the other hand, there is nothing in the article from the logical positivists view. Altough logical positivism was the establisher of philosophy of science. And nothing about postpositivistic views except of Kuhn and Feyerabend. There are some others.

So this article is:

• Unsysthematic
• Biased
• Arbitrary
• Incomplete

I suggest to restructure the article as follows:

• Elements of scientific method

Here we can describe the most common elements and requirements of scientific method, which are accepted by most of the philosophers. Thsi shall be the description of the neutral point of view.

• Philosophycal issues

Here we can discuss such contoroversies, as Poppar and Carnap on induction, Kuhn and Popper on falsification, Feyerabend and everybody else on method. And so on.

I repeat my opinion: this is an awful article, and it is worse than Wikipedia. Is your intention to be worse than Wikipedia?

--Matthias Brendel 08:13, 6 February 2007 (CST)

The Wikipedia article was quite good. I do not understand why was it deleted, and why did you rewrite it. The Wikipedia article is still much better. I would like to start from that as a basis.

Why is it good that a good article is rewritten by a scientist, who has quite a few knowledge about philosophy of science? Gareth Leng is not an expert, and I do not see, why should it be good for Citizendium that he replaces the Wikipedia article with his personal picture of science.

--Matthias Brendel 08:19, 6 February 2007 (CST)