BIOL 391 Philosophy of Experimentation Concluding Remarks 2024 PDF

9/24/24 Chapter 12 Be aware and careful of your Philosophy of Experimentation Experimental Framework and the...

9/24/24 Chapter 12 Be aware and careful of your Philosophy of Experimentation Experimental Framework and the System (next few chapters). - Concluding Remarks – While a framework governs the way Ch. 12, Glass (2014) scientist thinks about an experiment, the BIOL 391 system comprises everything the scientist uses to perform an Intro to Biological Research experiment. Fall 2024 1 2 Experimental Framework Science under Pressure 1. Hypothetical falsification Financial - $ is limited from governmental and private funding bodies 2. Model/Question (decreasing yearly). Be aware that the framework and Too little to finance most proposals as a methodology can influence the result funding agencies are timid to take chances on projects that might outcome: not succeed. – Because you only measure what you chose Research autonomy – only certain topics to measure. are funded due to political/public pressures. – Can only gain perspectives on the aspects – Researchers cannot just do what interests of the problem that you actually study. them. 3 4 Science under Scrutiny Prior data drives science Governmental bodies The hypothesis framework is justified with – e.g., Alberta government does not fund prior data (something funding agencies, or environmental research. peer reviewers, like to see first). False narratives (fake/conspiracy Thus, the inductive approach, which is theories) based on no prior knowledge, is less – e.g., climate change can be explained by appealing to these entities. cyclical weather patterns and not due to With inherent problems, the hypothesis human influence/impacts. framework is still the dominant – Science need to inform public with sound, framework governing research today. convincing and easy to understand results. 5 6 1  9/24/24 Most of research is not reproducible. Hypothesis-falsification framework It is suggested that more than half of Scientist may dismiss falsifying data as published literature is reported not reproducible – a serious problem! “negative” and blame the experiment The dominant hypothesis framework may didn’t work that day. introduce biases because of a need to obtain a This may allow minority results that are in certain result. sync with the hypothesis as more important, Thus, results obtained are filtered through these biased lenses. and the only data worth reporting. “Faulty” results leads to irreproducibility, which eventually form the basis of “untrue” conclusions. 7 8 Question/Model framework Summary Because this models guides research to accept any Be aware and careful of data as “positive” since the approach assumes we do limitations. not know the answers before the experiment is done – s/he is the state of not knowing the answer. The desire of every scientist – to Thus, this framework is more neutral (not biased) concerning to the data collected in response to the discover something new! question asked. This framework allows one to create models from The aim is to answer our the data that can be further tested reproducibly. questions and in doing so provide If not reproducible, to create another model, or a model for how something works refine the original model, to fit the data. that was not previously understood. 9 10 2