Ivy Jean, this is a brilliant question and is clearly, very important. Ironically, the nebulous answers posited so far barely hint at why. To be blunt, to properly answer this question, you first need an accurate, real world way to delineate between scientific problems and non-scientific problems. Lists of what qualify do little good. In…
In the sixth century BCE, Parmenides claimed, nothing true ever changes. In the same time period, Heraclitus claimed, you can’t step into the same river twice. Since then, an incredible amount of brilliant, but foolish, people have argued this point. All the while, the answer is right in front of us. Both are true and…
This is an amazingly intuitive question and could easily take a whole book to explore [something I actually did a few years back when I wrote, “The Science of Discovery (why do scientists so rarely make breakthroughs)”, 2016]. Shameless plugs from self-promoting authors aside (please forgive me), the gist of my answer is this. The…
Basic? Not really. For instance, one of Popper’s main drives appears to be what at first glance seems to be a simple question: How do we differentiate between science and pseudoscience? To me, that he posited a possible solution to this problem is an act of courage. That he dared to find fault in the…
First, I find this question especially insightful. Juxtaposing these two men and their work reveals a lot about science’s internal struggles. In the broadest sense, then, all science looks to reduce infinitely complex, real world things to brief (by comparison) and useful descriptions of their nature. The problem, which both Popper and Kuhn tried to…
My apologies for not writing this from scratch. And for the blatant plug. The following is excerpted from my recent book; The Science of Discovery. See more at http://stevenpaglierani.com) ———————————————————————————————————————- Even a brief review of the posts on Quora requesting an answer to this question reveals the depth of the problem with assuming there is…
Just a few “brief” thoughts; questions, really; meant only to stimulate a respectful dialogue. I love science and scientists. So please, let’s do our best to emulate the great scientists by remaining curious and open minded. [1] The Scientific Method lacks of a scientific definition: We tend to think of the Scientific Method as clear…
Ah, John, perhaps you’ve never actually read Descartes’ books? Or perhaps you’ve never looked at them closely, or are only parroting what others claim? Whatever the case, in truth, the entire reason Descartes titled his first published book Discourse on Method is because in it, he enumerates his four step scientific method.Ironically, while few people…
To begin with, when I first read this question, I wondered if it was being posted by a troll. Please realize, I mean no offense to the OP. I’m simply pointing out how open to interpretation this question is. I find this vagueness ironic in light of the motives most scientists aspire to. Most scientists,…