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Volume 13: Number 2: Article 8
What Are the Irreducible Components of the Scientific Enterprise?
Ian Stevenson, Dept. of Psychiatric Medicine, Health Science Center,
Box 152, Unversity of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville,
Virginia, 22908
In this essay the author argues that many scientists (and laymen also)
have come to take a narrow view of what constitutes science. They would
exclude as "unscientific" observations that do not include a falsifiable
theory with predictions testable and repeatable in laboratory experiments.
In contrast, the author contends that science is more an attitude than
a method. The attitude is one of testing interpretations of observed
phenomena against further observations until one interpretation emerges
as the best. Unfortunately, judgments about the best interpretation
vary greatly, and scientists with new ideas and new observations must
often overcome biases in their colleagues before their work becomes
accepted as scientific.
Keywords: scientific method, philosophy of science
FULL TEXT:
What Are the Irreducible Components of the Scientific Enterprise?
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