Q: What makes scientific research different?
Krishna: I came across several people who say they are 'truth seekers'. When I asked them how they seek truth, they told me 'through meditation, through gurus' and several other unreliable methods.
I asked them these questions (2).
If you are attached to a belief, how can you seek truth in a neutral manner?
How can unverifiable and imaginative things be called ‘truth’ just because you think they are?
Won't' reasoning backward from belief to evidence is a wrong way to seek truth because that will subject you to numerous cognitive biases and you risk fooling yourself about the nature of reality?
How can fear of the supernatural take you to unbiased reasoning?
Isn’t it better to understand the way the world really is rather than how we would like it to be?
Without freedom from biases, feelings, preconceived notions, fears and beliefs, how can you seek truth?
How can imaginative or creative stories be called truths without evidence?
Strangely nobody could answer any of these Qs satisfactorily. These truth seekers are highly confused!
What makes science different and reliable then?
Unlike art, philosophy, religion and other ways of seeking truth or knowing, science is based on empirical research. A scientist conducts this research to answer a question that she or he has about the natural world.
Empirical research relies on systematic observation and experimentation, not on opinions, beliefs and feelings. These systematic observations and experiments provide research results (evidence) that must meet two criteria in order for a scientist’s research to withstand thorough questioning. These two criteria are validity and reliability.
Validity means that research is relevant to the question being asked.
Reliability describes the repeatability or consistency of the research. Research results are considered reliable when other scientists can perform the same experiment under the same conditions and obtain the same or similar results.
This is following scientific method.
Scientific research is investigating and acquiring or expanding our understanding using scientific method whereas nonscientific research is acquiring knowledge and truths about the world using techniques that do not follow the scientific method.
The findings of scientific research can be reproduced and demonstrated to be consistent.
Nonscientific research is acquiring knowledge and truths about the world using techniques that do not follow the scientific method.
Scientific research is a logically stepped process used for investigating and acquiring or expanding our understanding. The findings of scientific research can be reproduced and demonstrated to be consistent. While in non scientific research, the research it’s not logically stepped process that used for investigating and acquiring or expanding our understanding.
Scientific research is a systematic way of gathering data and harnessing curiosity. This research provides scientific information and theories for the explanation of the nature and the properties of the world. It makes practical applications possible. While non scientific research does not follow systematic way of gathering data and harnessing curiosity.
Scientific research is a systematic way of analyzing and interpreting new or existing material through experimentation and observation, While Non scientific research is based upon investigation of natural phenomenon without systematic procedures.
Science can be thought of as a discipline that requires a degree of evidence to build knowledge around phenomena, but it also blends logic with imagination. As a result, science is dynamic and creative, and scientists often disagree about experimental designs, results analyses and interpretations and try to improve on each others' methods.
Unlike other methods, science invites falsification and keeps changing as and when new reliable data arrives. Science is set up to challenge its claims and look for evidence that might prove it false.
Sciences are testable, pseudo-sciences are not.
The important difference seems to be in which approach gives better logical justification for knowledge claims. A pseudo-knowledge may make you feel like you've got a good picture of how the world works, but you could well be wrong about it. If a scientific picture of the world is wrong, that hard-headed scientific attitude means the chances are good that we'll find out we're wrong and switch to a different picture. Science discards it if some idea or theory was found wrong. The scientific attitude is aimed at locating and removing the false claims -- something that doesn't happen in pseudo-sciences and other means of understanding the world(1).
Therefore science is the best and most reliable method in present circumstances to seek facts about our universe.
Footnotes:
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