Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Professor of biology Jerry Coyne sums up biological evolution succinctly: [3]. Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.
Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis, [1] although scientists also use evidence in other ways, such as when applying theories to practical problems. [2] Such evidence is expected to be empirical evidence and interpretable in accordance with the scientific method.
The philosophy of science includes the question: What criteria are satisfied by a 'good' theory. This question has a long history, and many scientists, as well as philosophers, have considered it. The objective is to be able to choose one theory as preferable to another without introducing cognitive bias. [4]
Other thinkers, such as N. Hanson among others, talk of theory-ladenness, and reject an absolutist fact–value distinction by contending that our senses are imbued with prior conceptualizations, making it impossible to have any observation that is totally value-free, which is how Hume and the later positivists conceived of facts.
The problem of underdetermination concerns the fact that the available evidence often provides equal support to either theory and therefore cannot arbitrate between them. [12] [13] Theory-ladenness refers to the idea that evidence already includes theoretical assumptions. These assumptions can hinder it from acting as neutral arbiter.
The history of scientific method considers changes in the methodology of scientific inquiry, not the history of science itself. The development of rules for scientific reasoning has not been straightforward; scientific method has been the subject of intense and recurring debate throughout the history of science, and eminent natural philosophers and scientists have argued for the primacy of ...
Image credits: sciencefunn The authors of the study analyzed 25 million papers (1945–2010) and 3.9 million patents (1976–2010) according to a new metric, the so-called "CD index," which ...
Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory—an event which would have refuted the theory. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen.