Janet over at Adventures in Ethics and Science has a great post today on what it means to test an hypothesis. This really is a core issue for any graduate student to spend some time thinking about–many of you are, after all, earning a Doctor of Philosophy. And the subject is hardly dry. It’s full of lively thinkers like Lakatos, Bayes, Feyerabend, Kuhn, and, Popper. These guys would be fun to have beers with.
Here’s another reason to spend a bit of time on this subject. As we wield the “Science stick” against all the pseudoscience out there, it’s best to be armed with more than the we can never prove, we can only falsify and theories are hypotheses that have survived the test of time mantras. The truth, as always, is likely more subtle.
I agree Mike, there is a great small book called “what is this thing called science” by AF Chalmers that every person interested in how science work should read. I think that understanding the basic of epistemology can help us also to be better scientist. Understanding how science work is not as easy as remembering the steps of the so called “scientific method” but it is much more interesting!
[...] post about why scientists should read philosophy of science Link is here. Feel free to [...]