The Scientific Method

TimeLord

Quantum Scribe
In another forum, I saw people discussing what is and is not the scientific method. I didn't think there was any confusion about it, but now I realize it's a simple matter of misunderstanding. From my brief introduction to microcontrollers (MCUs), I now see exactly what it takes for an investigation into something to be scientific. You need to have controllable INPUT and measureable OUTPUT. With an MCU, you have pins designated as inputs, where you take measurements from sensors. And you also have output pins, where you react upon those. However, with science, the microcontroller is replaced by whatever phenomenon you're studying. If it doesn't have any input pins, so to speak, then you can't study it reliably. Similarly, if it has no output pins, then you can't observe its reaction to your input. Real science is as simple and reliable as a good computer. Any questions? /ttiforum/images/graemlins/yum.gif
 
To add to this:

You can't treat anecdotes and uncontrollable paranormal phenomena as scientific because there is no reliable INPUT to the thing. That applies to ufos, ghosts, etc. If you try to make a robot but the pins on the MCU randomly disappear or stop wroking, then you've got a serious problem. See the analogy?
 
One thing that I don't understand are people who claim to practice science but call on others to prove things even after they have done their experiments and released at least some of their data but they themselves the person attacking the science will not practice the scientific method to further prove or disprove what they are attacking. So my point here is that there are two types of people. Those who claim to practice the scientific method and those who really practice it.

Here's an example of why we use the scientific method, why we employ peer review and how failing to follow the practice leads to self fulfilling prophecies. It's based on a real example offered by a well known physicist. I'll change the scenario a bit. In the original the undergrad researcher is an Experimental Psych student. In my example she will be an undergrad researcher is studying Experimental Parapsychology.

The experimental design calls for her to run rats through a Skinner Box 10 times each and see how long it takes them to figure out the maze, get to the food shoot and pull the lever to release the food.

The parapsychological part of the design is that she will have another student sending out "thought waves" to the rats to help them figure out the maze. The proof of the pudding will be measured in how quickly they learn as compared to a control group who weren't offered thought waves. The control group experiment was run by a third single blind researcher, using the same Skinner Box, who was unaware that he was a control group or that another experiment would be run later. All times for each rat in each group are the average of their 10 runs through the box.

She gets her rats and starts running her experiment. Over time she discovers that the rats start learning the maze faster and faster the longer she runs the experiment. Rat 1 learned the maze in about the same time that the control group learned it. Rat 2 faster than 1, 3 faster than 2...Rat 20 learned it faster than Rat 19 and so on.

She applies a statistical model and the numbers indicate that by Rat 20 they were learning the maze far quicker than mere random chance. By Rat 100 the times level off but they are all still stupendously quick as compared to the control group.

This effect was not present at all in the control group. Variations in the learning curve times were all within the norm and had no particular pattern. She concludes that there is a paranormal effect. The rats start learning more quickly as the thought wave sender became more efficient over time (practice effect) at sending mental ques to the rats.

She's reviewed her design and (correctly) concludes that there was no cheating, all data was correctly logged, the math was all correct, no rats were used for more than one trial of 10 runs, it was always the same Skinner Box and nothing about the box was altered between groups or individual trials.

There's more to the story but the question right now is whether or not she has come to a valid conclusion based on her design and results?
 
There's more to the story but the question right now is whether or not she has come to a valid conclusion based on her design and results?


Definitely not. The rats may have varied......but I'd be highly suspicious that some sort of 'trail' was left ( as it was always the same boxes ) in the form of scent or something like that. The results would then be exactly what one would expect if the rats were simply following a hidden trail of some sort.....a trail that was re-inforced the more rats went down it.

It's a good example of how one has to rule out ALL other possibilities before concluding that a parapsychology phenomenon is 'real'. The primary reason ( other than lack of a scientific model ) that science does not believe in psychic stuff is precisely because in practice it is almost impossible to eliminate every conceivable other explanation.
 
Twilight and TimeCrime,

You're both on the right track.

What Feynman went on to say was that he had her clean the tracks - all of them not just the "right" track so that there was no scent left behind. He also had her seal the trap door so that the food scent coundn't get through and finally he had her place the entire apparatus on a sand bed so that specific "creeks" and "cracks" associated with the plywood floor didn't give away hints about the correct track. In short he had her look for and correct any sources of noise that might affect her results.

When she repeated her experiment with all new rats her results ended up falling well within the norm for the control group. No effect. The story says a lot about how differently things were run at Cal Tech versus how they were being run at Duke's school of parapsychology in the late 1950's/early 60's and the integrity of the students and staff at Cal Tech.

PS: For any Duke Blue Devils who might be out there. Duke is a wonderful university with an admirable reputation for staff and student research integrity. We've had one of their physics professors, Dr. Robert Brown, comment on our forum in the past. The integrity comment was aimed specifically at the old school of parapsychology which is no longer a part of the regular university.
 
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