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Obviously. The scientific method is so obvious that it doesn't need proof. You take a hypothesis, test it using processes that are clearly defined and repeatable, publish them so that the tests can be repeated by disinterested third parties, and you have your scientific proof of said hypothesis. What else could your post want?
I sense that your motive for asking is to discredit science. If it is, your question is demonstrative of the larger Evangelical attack on science in the U.S. Incidentally, whether science can be "proven by the scientific method" or not, it's cured illnesses, fortified crops, doubled human life-span, pioneered other worlds, enabled global communication and so much more.
No, because the foundation for the scientific method is philosophical, based on the logical consequences of epistemology. Philosophy is fundamentally not experimental, and science fundamentally is, so it is the wrong tool to use to approach philosophical questions.
Yes, in that out of all the other methods we have of determining what is an accurate description of how reality works, the scientific method generates far and away the most reliable experimentally verifiable models. This isn't a measure of truth, per se, but it clearly has a stunning track record of valid and useful conclusions about reality, and internal methods of self correction. If we view truth as a correspondence with observed reality, then we can conclude experimentally that the scientific method is unparalleled when arriving at the truth.
The scientific method is validated by results as evidenced by its track record. In a practical sense, science is validated by applied science (aka technology).
I say "validated" rather than "proven" because technically the former is more accurate than the later. Obviously if science discovers things like electromagnetic energy and technology develops that into digital computers and networking protocols and routers and we successfully use that to post and view messages like this, I think science as a valid and useful methodology for discovering and harnessing the workings of the natural universe is "proven" for all practical intents and purposes.
The scientific method is validated by results as evidenced by its track record. In a practical sense, science is validated by applied science (aka technology).
I say "validated" rather than "proven" because technically the former is more accurate than the later. Obviously if science discovers things like electromagnetic energy and technology develops that into digital computers and networking protocols and routers and we successfully use that to post and view messages like this, I think science as a valid and useful methodology for discovering and harnessing the workings of the natural universe is "proven" for all practical intents and purposes.
Quite right. Proofs are for math, experimental validation is science. One can experimentally validate the efficacy of the scientific method, but one cannot "prove" ( in the logical ad mathematical sense) by experimental validation.
-NoCapo
Prove what about it? That's kind of a pointless question, isn't it? It sounds clever, but it doesn't mean anything.
It isn't a fact, but a method.
Yep ... people often speak of "proven methods" but that is shorthand for "shown to work" or "validated".
The only things that can actually be proven are facts, and the scientific method is a way of discovering facts and demonstrating them to BE facts.
Applied science (technology) takes those facts and finds useful things to do with them, and successful harnessing of scientific facts also shows that the facts are, in fact, facts ;-)
Of course, not every field of scientific endeavor lends itself to applied applications that are equally concrete and comprehensible to non-scientists. It's far easier for a theist to accept computers, televisions, cell phones and crock pots, both because it's obvious from everyday experience that scientific knowledge of those fields is accurate and relatable, and because (by most interpretations anyway) the existence and use of those things does not contradict the Bible or its commandments.
It's only when science disagrees in some unambiguous way with the Bible (especially a literal interpretation thereof) that they want to ask silly and leading questions such as "can science can be proven by science". And it seems easier to question it in those areas because when it comes to things like evolution, origins, and much of cosmology, "we don't have an app for that" or even complete and undisputed answers to all questions.
Lacking answers to most of the questions didn't stop us from advancing medicine for instance from the days of blood-letting and leeches, or inventing telescopes and celestial mechanics to improve our knowledge of the cosmos. Theists of yore objected to many of those advances, based on doctrine, and they have had to drop those objections. There's not reason to think their remaining objections will be any different.
03-26-2014, 11:47 AM
2K5Gx2km
n/a posts
Great, I come in here to post some stuff and everyone already answered very nicely within the first page.
There is more than one scientific method. It's not a single thing to be proven or disproven. Instead it is a body of principles that are typically employed to investigate phenomena and acquire/verify new knowledge.
Beyond that, I think the answer may be "no", depending on what you mean by "science," what you mean by the "scientific method," and what you mean by "proven."
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