Today I learnt how scientific method works exactly. Even though I am about to finish a degree called Computer Science and there is the word science in the title, I am still vague on the details on how it works exactly.
The scientific method procedure is fairly simple, and is made up of 5 essential steps, and the 6th optional step. Scientific method goes as such:
- Making an observation
- Asking a question
- Forming a hypothesis, or testable explanation
- Making a prediction based on the hypothesis
- Testing the prediction
- Iterating (using the results to form new hypotheses or predictions)
Let's examine and build some intuition about the scientific method by going through a personal example.
The first step is to make an observation. For example, I have noticed that my throat is often sore closer to the evening while it is fine in the morning. Now I may be wondering why that is? One possible explanation is that lots of talking during the day exarcabate the sore throat.
Therefore, to answer the question we need to form a hypothesis. My hypothesis is that if I were to talk absolutely nothing during the day, the throat will hurt less, or not at all closer to the evening. Once the hypothesis is formed, you test it according to the requirements that the experiment design demands. In this case, it is simply adhering to the rule of not talking throughout the entire day.
If by the end of the non-talking day the throat is indeed better than on the regular days, the hypotehesis can be supported. However, the hypothesis can never be proven as there is always a possibility that something was left out in the experiment, or the results were just a fluke and so on.
The best that can be done is to refine the experiment further and make the hypothesis more concrete. It is possible that the throat was not so sore throat due to a number of other factors such as the food that I ate, how much I rested, other activities that one did or not do during the non-talking day compared to the regular day.
Now, why go through this formal procedure of answering even such simple questions as why my throat is more sore in the evenings? This is done in order to make the findings repeatable by others so they can perform the same test and see if the results support the hypothesis.
My example is not the perfect example in this case because it assumes that everyone has the sore throat in the evenings and a fine throat in the morning. However, that is not the case. Plus, people vary in age, gender and many other independent variables that are hard to control for.
On the other hand, if we were to ask a question of why a pond freezes quicker than an ocean, it would be easier to define the exact testing conditions, and make the entire experiment repeatble which is exactly what makes science science.
The primary idea behind the scientific method is to construct experiments with hypothesis, method and results that can be repeated and confirmed. If the results can be repeated and confirmed, we can be confident, at least to some degree, that we have just discovered a new fact that can be later used by other experiments to build on it futher.
There is some confusion between the difference of a theory and a hypothesis, and are often used interchangeably in every day language. To clear up the difference, let's properly define both.
Hypothesis is just a possible explanation for some observation, a hunch/guess, what have you. On the other hand, theory is an explanation that is supported by evidence. So a theory can be though of as a confirmed hypothesis.