Marks of Science: The Scientific Method
Nutrition is a branch of science, so the scientific method is the gold standard for acquiring reliable knowledge. In this post my take on how this method came to be and how it is used.
The Marks of Science: A Method to the Madness
“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true”, Sir Francis Bacon
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English philosopher, scientist, lawyer, statesman, orator and author who is widely held to be the originator of modern scientific method. Sir Frances, apparently also known as “Frank” Bacon down at the Elizabethan Lanes bowling alley in London, imbued scientific inquiry with a logical structure taken from his readings of the Greek classics, starting with Aristotle, one of the fathers of logical inquiry and what would come to be called science (Latin scientia, meaning a body or system of knowledge).
Bacon delineated the following basic steps in the process:
Systematically record observations of natural phenomena using utmost care to avoid bias and to ensure that measurements are accurate and repeatable.
If observations were correct they would lead the scientist to create tables of data that could be used to hypothesize relationships between the observed properties of nature.
These suppositions should then be testable using controlled experiments where a portion of the natural system is studied in isolation, such that the proposed relationship between two variables could be tested apart from other potentially confounding influences. In modern scientific method we refer to the independent and dependent variables in a controlled experiment. The independent variable is the factor that is varied by the experimenter, such as temperature in a fermentation vessel and the dependent variable, for example gas production, is measured in response to changes in the independent variable to tell whether there is a direct relationship between the two.
If all goes well with steps 1-3 and new relationships are established between natural phenomena then further expanding and testing the validity of these relationships will lead to new discoveries and a progressive increase in human understanding of nature and our ability to use this new knowledge to make practical improvements to the quality of life.
Karl Popper, a 20th Century philosopher of science was inspired by Einstein’s 1905 discovery of Special Relativity and its implications for scientific inquiry. He was especially interested in the process of verification of experimental predictions, the heart of the scientific method. He proposed that reliable conclusions must be based on both the falsifiability and the verifiability of experiments, whether actual physical laboratory experiments, or as in the case of Einstein, and other theoretical physicists, thought experiments described in mathematical language.
Popper held that scientific method begins with a system of statements or a theory that is then tested and either verified or refuted. Furthermore he believed that all scientific progress hinged on the refutation of past theories, which was certainly the case with Albert Einstein who said this when referring to his own theories: “no amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong”. Einstein has yet to be proven wrong, and the scientific process continues in the hands of successive generations of scientific adventurers.
Next post: Hypothesis Testing (the excitement is building!)