Editing Scientific method (section)

=== Unificationism ===
{{Main|Unity of science}}

Unificationism, in science, was a central tenet of [[logical positivism]].<ref name="Neurath† Bonk 2011">{{cite book | last1=Neurath† | first1=Otto | author1-link=Otto Neurath| last2=Bonk | first2=Thomas | title=Otto Neurath and the Unity of Science | chapter=Unity of Science and Logical Empiricism: A Reply | publisher=Springer Netherlands | publication-place=Dordrecht | date=2011 | isbn=978-94-007-0142-7 | doi=10.1007/978-94-007-0143-4_2 | pages=15–30}}</ref><ref name="McGill 1937">{{cite journal | last=McGill | first=V. J. | title=Logical Positivism and the Unity of Science | journal=Science & Society | publisher=Guilford Press | volume=1 | issue=4 | year=1937 | issn=0036-8237 | jstor=40399117 | pages=550–561 }}</ref> Different logical positivists construed this doctrine in several different ways, e.g. as a [[reductionism|reductionist]] thesis, that the objects investigated by the [[special sciences]] reduce to the objects of a common, putatively more basic domain of science, usually thought to be physics; as the thesis that all theories and results of the various sciences can or ought to be expressed in a common language or "universal slang"; or as the thesis that all the special sciences share a common scientific method.{{efn|name=unifiedMethod|1= The topics of study, as expressed in the vocabulary of its scientists, are approached by a "single unified method".<ref name= cowles />{{rp|pp.8,13,33–35,60}} A topic is [[Unification of theories in physics|unified]] by its [[Predicate variable|predicate]]s, which describe a [[system]] of mathematical [[Expression (mathematics)|expression]]s.<ref name=Knight1989 >Kevin Knight (1989) [https://kevincrawfordknight.github.io/papers/unification-knight.pdf Unification: A Multidisciplinary Survey] ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 21, No. 1, March 1989</ref>{{rp|93–94,113–117}} The values which a [[Predicate (mathematical logic)|predicate]] might take, then serve as [[Witness (mathematics)|witness]] to the validity of a predicated expression (that is, ''true'' or ''false''; 'predicted but not yet observed'; 'corroborates', etc.).}}

Development of the idea has been troubled by accelerated advancement in technology that has opened up many new ways to look at the world.

{{Blockquote|quote=The fact that the standards of scientific success shift with time does not only make the philosophy of science difficult; it also raises problems for the public understanding of science. We do not have a fixed scientific method to rally around and defend. 
|source=[[Steven Weinberg]], 1995<ref name="Weinberg 1995" />}}