Editing Scientific method (section)

=== Empiricism, rationalism, and more pragmatic views ===

Scientific endeavour can be characterised as the pursuit of truths about the natural world or as the elimination of doubt about the same. The former is the direct construction of explanations from empirical data and logic, the latter the reduction of potential explanations.{{efn-lg|"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense." — [[Carl Sagan]]<ref>{{cite book | last=Sagan | first=Carl | title=The Demon-Haunted World | date=1995 | author-link=Carl Sagan | title-link=The Demon-Haunted World}}<!--credit to q:Science--></ref>}} It was established [[#th-v-obs|above]] how the interpretation of empirical data is theory-laden, so neither approach is trivial.

The ubiquitous element in the scientific method is [[empiricism]], which holds that knowledge is created by a process involving observation; scientific theories generalize observations. This is in opposition to stringent forms of [[rationalism]], which holds that knowledge is created by the human intellect; later clarified by Popper to be built on prior theory.{{sfnp|Godfrey-Smith|2003|pp=19-74}} The scientific method embodies the position that reason alone cannot solve a particular scientific problem; it unequivocally refutes claims that [[revelation]], political or religious [[dogma]], appeals to tradition, commonly held beliefs, common sense, or currently held theories pose the only possible means of demonstrating truth.<ref name= truthSought4sake /><ref name="reasonsFirstRule">{{cite book |last=Peirce |first=Charles S. |title=Collected Papers |year=1899 |series=v. 1 |at=paragraphs 135–140 |chapter=F.R.L. [First Rule of Logic] |quote=...&nbsp;in order to learn, one must desire to learn&nbsp;... |access-date=2012-01-06 |chapter-url=http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120106071421/http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm |archive-date=January 6, 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1877,<ref name="Fixation" /> [[C. S. Peirce]] characterized inquiry in general not as the pursuit of truth ''per se'' but as the struggle to move from irritating, inhibitory doubts born of surprises, disagreements, and the like, and to reach a secure belief, the belief being that on which one is prepared to act. His [[Pragmatism|pragmatic]] views framed scientific inquiry as part of a broader spectrum and as spurred, like inquiry generally, by actual doubt, not mere verbal or "hyperbolic doubt", which he held to be fruitless.{{efn|1="What one does not in the least doubt one should not pretend to doubt; but a man should train himself to doubt," said Peirce in a brief intellectual autobiography.<ref>{{cite book |contributor-last=Ketner |contributor-first=Kenneth Laine |year=2009 |contribution=Charles Sanders Peirce: Interdisciplinary Scientist |last=Peirce |first=Charles S. |editor-last=Bisanz |editor-first=Elize |title=The Logic of Interdisciplinarity |publisher=Akademie Verlag |place=Berlin}}</ref> Peirce held that actual, genuine doubt originates externally, usually in surprise, but also that it is to be sought and cultivated, "provided only that it be the weighty and noble metal itself, and no counterfeit nor paper substitute".<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Peirce |first=Charles S. |date=October 1905 |title=Issues of Pragmaticism |magazine=The Monist |volume=XV |number=4 |pages=481–499, see [https://archive.org/stream/monistquart15hegeuoft#page/484/mode/1up p. 484], and [https://archive.org/stream/monistquart15hegeuoft#page/491/mode/1up p. 491]}} Reprinted in ''Collected Papers'' v. 5, paragraphs 438–463, see 443 and 451.</ref>}} This "hyperbolic doubt" Peirce argues against here is of course just another name for [[Cartesian doubt]] associated with [[René Descartes]]. It is a methodological route to certain knowledge by identifying what can't be doubted.

A strong formulation of the scientific method is not always aligned with a form of [[empiricism]] in which the empirical data is put forward in the form of experience or other abstracted forms of knowledge as in current scientific practice the use of [[scientific modelling]] and reliance on abstract typologies and theories is normally accepted. In 2010, [[Stephen Hawking|Hawking]] suggested that physics' models of reality should simply be accepted where they prove to make useful predictions. He calls the concept [[model-dependent realism]].<ref name="Hawking"/>