re science and methodology in article apr sbcs sunysb edu mhollowa ic sunysb edu michael holloway writes in article c jv ggb news hawaii edu lady uhunix uhcc hawaii edu lee lady writes i would also like to point out that most of the arguments about science in sci med sci psychology etc are not about cases where people are rejecting scientific argument evidence proof they are about cases where no adequate scientific research has been done in some cases there is quite a bit of evidence but it isn t in a format to fit doctrinaire conceptions of what science is here it is again this indicates confusion between proof and the process of doing science you are making precisely one of the points i wanted to make i fully agree with you that there is a big distinction between the process of science and the end result as an end result of science one wants to get results that are objectively verifiable but there is nothing objective about the process of science if good empirical research were done and showed that there is some merit to homeopathic remedies this would certainly be valuable information but it would still not mean that homeopathy qualifies as a science this is where you and i disagree with turpin in order to have science one must have a theoretical structure that makes sense not a mere collection of empirically validated random hypotheses experiment and empirical studies are an important part of science but they are merely the culmination of scientific research the most important part of true scientific methodology is scientific thinking without this one does not have any hypotheses worth testing no hypotheses do not just leap out at you after you look at enough data nor do they simply come to you in a flash one day while you re shaving or looking out the window at least not unless you ve done a lot of really good thinking beforehand the difference between a nobel prize level scientist and a mediocre scientist does not lie in the quality of their empirical methodology it depends on the quality of their thinking it really bothers me that so many graduate students seem to believe that they are doing science merely because they are conducting empirical studies and it bothers me even more that there are many fields such as certain parts of psychology where there seems to be no thinking at all but mere studies testing ad hoc hypotheses and i m especially offended by russell turpin s repeated assertion that science amounts to nothing more than avoiding mistakes simply avoiding mistakes doesn t get you anywhere in the arguments between behaviorists and cognitivists psychology seems less like a science than a collection of competing religious sects lady uhunix uhcc hawaii edu lady uhunix bitnet
