Scientific method

Unlike what is taught in grade school, there is no THE scientific method. That is, there isn't a formula of steps that scientists use and follow "religously".

Science does use the hypothetico-deductive method. That is,
1. Hypotheses are made,
2. The hypothesis is assumed to be true
3. Deductions are made about what we should observe IF the hypothesis is true.
4. Experiments or information gathering is done deliberately in an attempt to show the hypothesis to be wrong.

However, it is often stated that hypotheses are based on observations. Wrong. They CAN be, but often are simply imaginative statements, without data, put out there for testing.

I think the best summaries of the essentials of the scientific method are given by Kitty Ferguson and Niles Eldredge:

"...what we learned in school about the scientific method can be reduced to two basic principles.
"1. All our theory, ideas, preconceptions, instincts, and prejudices about how things logically ought to be, how they in all fairness ought to be, or how we would prefer them to be, must be tested against external reality --what they *really* are. How do we determine what they really are? Through direct experience of the universe itself.
2. The testing, the experience, has to be public, repeatable -- in the public domain. If the results are derived only once, if the experience is that of only one person and isn't available to others who attempt the same test or observation under approximately the same conditions, science must reject the findings as invalid -- not necessarily false, but uselss. One-time, private experience is not acceptable." Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations, pg. 38.

"The only rule of the scientific method is that we must discard any scientific statement if the evidence of our senses shows it to be wrong. To be scientific, we must be able to go to nature to see if an idea works, to see if it fits. If we cannot go out and test the validity of a notion directly, we can take a more circuitous route: if an explanation about the world is correct, it must imply some further consequences that we can observe in nature. If we fail to find these predicted consequences, if instead we observe something else, then our explanation can't be correct. If we *do* make the predicted observations, temporarily the explanation has defied our attempts to show it false."
Niles Eldredge, The Monkey Business, A Scientist Looks at Creationism, 1982, pg. 27-28.

Questions?