[extropy-chat] FWD (Got Caliche?) The real method of scientific discovery: [...]

[Terry W. Colvin]

TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY

< http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2843/1_28/111897967/print.jhtml >

The Scientific Method: The idea that there is a single Scientific Method and
that induction is a key part of it is one of the most unfortunate fables
foisted off on innocent students, and I have often wondered if the very
dullness of the method described in textbook after textbook is not responsible
for turning many young people away from science. Retroduction, or abduction,
is the real method of scientific work, although it generally proceeds by small
steps requiring relatively small imaginative leaps. We should tell people about
those imaginative leaps. They are more exciting and creative than enumerating
crows.


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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