The Scientist’s Operating Manual 18 Sep 2010 As you may know I suggested that we should produce this text as a group. So I thought that I’d add some structure, and use this post to link in existing material as suggested. If you think you’d like to contribute, write and let me know. Post it on your blog, or, if it’s already there, tell me. Stuff below the fold; please suggest additions or changes: 1. Evidence; gathering, measuring, analysing 2. Classifying: field observation 3. Experiment: design, interpretation 4. Hypothesis: testing and confirming 5. Research programs: planning and funding 6. Implementation: making technologies and applications 7. Social context: ethics, policy, education 8. Pseudoscience and politics 9. Philosophy: epistemology, induction, theorising, social construction. Dropping the “p-word” (paradigms) 10. Conclusions: Sokal, Feynman Education Epistemology General Science Science
Epistemology Scientists on religion 2 May 2010 This book looks interesting: empirical work on what scientists actually think about religion… according to the blurb, more than 50% are religious. I’m not sure if this should surprise anyone – most groups in a society will be largely composed of people who match the standards in their society; the… Read More
Epistemology The relation of classification to abductive reasoning 3 Feb 20135 Feb 2013 In my last post, commentator DiscoveredJoys raised the question of abductive reasoning and how it relates to my claim that classification is basically pattern recognition. It’s a fair question. First I’ll repeat my response, and then go into it a little more. In my view, abduction is larger in scope… Read More
Looks good to me. My little piece obviously falls under the rubric of classifying & fieldwork (#2). And, I might add, I’ve now got some more examples (see comments for links), one provided by a reader, and three that I somehow bumped into at Flicker. Here’s the distribution of the heart motif: 1. NYC, Heart, prior to 1984 2. Jersey City, Then One, contemporary 3. Osaka, Zen One, contemporary 4. Bristol, Dewey Spencer writing as Ames, contemporary 5. Oshin, East Bay USA, contemporary 6. Very, East Bay USA, contemporary
Those categories are all a little vague to me, so it’s hard to tell what you’re getting at. Some of them seem to run into each other to an annoying degree. Perhaps something on how one arrives at hypotheses to test? Presumably the best way to do this would be to observe what a wide variety of scientists in different disciplines actually do. Sec0nd best would be for a wide variety of scientists to tell you what they do, trusting that they are good observers of their own process.
This list seems to miss many important or relevant themes and to be focused on one cartoonish stereotype of an academic science researcher. Who should or can be a scientist? There is no mention of curiosity about the world and how it works or fits together. About how and why scientists are attracted to different fields and specialities, and who is suited to which fields? About choosing a research discipline or topic? For interest, for career, for funding, for reasons of principle or politics (e.g. alternative energy sources, conservation issues). Assembling and working with a team? Team and lab culture? Teams who are leader-driven, teams that are more collective? Problems of commercial and military science and confidentiality or secrecy versus more open academic science. Patent issues in areas with technological applications. Selling an idea or approach; the role of conferences and workshops, networking. How about senior scientists who want to continue real research rather than become figureheads doing politics and admin? 🙂 The role of philosophy of science as a retirement home for former physicists??
Sam your catalogue are all important items for the sociology of science and not aspects of basic scientific methodology which as I understand it is what John wishes to teach his students.
Yeeesssss… to some extent. But they’re about how the scientific world works. And shouldn’t an “operating manual” include that? And “scientist”? Is there really that much overlap in the day-to-day or year-to-year activities of a physicist looking for bosons at CERN and a marine biologist looking for minke whales in the North Atlantic, apart from a rational approach to nature? Sorry to be so negative, I really enjoy this blog and its contributors, but this one idea I don’t buy. Outside of vanity publishing, books should be written for readers, not for the authors. Which scientists are going to be better informed by reading this book (unless I’ve misunderstood and the sub-title is How To Operate Your Pet Scientist)? How is the book going to be specific enough to be useful if it’s this broad in its reach? Does funding for crop research in Africa share much common ground with funding for high energy physics in China?
1. Feyerabend is largely a philosopher talking to philosophers about philosophical issues (not that any of that is a bad thing; but it happens not to be what I currently want). 2. I was planning to introduce Feyerabend in the conclusion, especially the line that the only Method is that Anything Goes, but that there are in fact many methods. [PKF was my advisor’s advisor. I’d be doing great harm to the lineage by not mentioning him.] 3. I don’t want to scare the horses in this case. They are only undergraduates…