--- Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At 01:51 PM 6/12/03 -0700, Jan Coffey wrote:
>
> >--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > > Hypothesis: A tentative assumption made in order to draw out
> > > > > and test its
> > > > > logical or empirical consequences.
> > > > >
> > > > > Theory: A scientifically acceptable general principle or body
> > > > > of principles
> > > > > offered to explain phenomena.
> > > > I would only add that hypothesis should only be used in the context
> of
> > > > fulfilling the initial requirement for the scientific method process,
> and
> > > > theory is used in place of proof, if a proof is not complete or not
> > > > possible.
> > > > At least this is what I was taught in High school science, for what
> > > that's
> > > > worth.
> > >
> > > I was taught the same thing in high school science. But, after a few
> years
> > > in graduate school I formed a different opinion. The scientific method
> is
> > > not as cut and dried as it appears in textbooks.
> > >
> >
> >Wow! I was taught the same thing in Uni as well. Of course you don't mean
> >that this is wrong do you? Just that it is more complex in the day to day
> >operation right?
> >
> > > First of all, things are not nearly as clear as they are in a textbook.
> > > The data show some inconsistencies, there are always 2-sd anomalies
> that
> > > lead you to investigate blind alleys. Further, experimentalists rarely
> > > have formulated a hypothesis to test before taking data. Rather, the
> > > hypothesis is much more loose: such as "I bet this would be an
> interesting
> > > place to look."
> >
> >Hmm. I was not taught that way, and in fact was taught specifically not to
> >work this way. I was taught that even when doing some loose exploratory to
> >formalize it. To actualize why I "bet it would be interesting." Or to
> >formalize that I was "looking in that place" because I needed evidence.
> Pose
> >negative hypothesis that I do not expect to be valid simply to cut out a
> >large area of probability. Is this any different really?
> >
> >*sigh* I know I must have made some syntactic mistake their myself but,
> hay,
> >I'm just as human as Erik.
> >
> > > A good theorist may come up with 5 different ideas in a day. About one
> > > every day or two is worth trying on colleagues. About one a month is
> worth
> > > publishing...at least according to Shelly Glashow, who shares the Nobel
> > > Prize for the Standard Model.
> >
> > > So, the scientific method is a lot more about good experimental
> technique
> > > (workmanlike effort in the words of a professor I've always respected)
> and
> > > thinking about the data and throwing models at it until one sticks.
> >
> >Spoken like a true experimentalist. The thing is that once you get a model
> to
> >stick, you have to make it all rigorous. You have to state, or at least
> >back-state the Hypothesis, show that the experiment supports it. Have it
> >checked by your peers. And make sure that it is reproducible. To have a
> >Hypothesis become a theory you have to do it all in such a way that makes
> any
> >other or Hypothesis improbable. Right?
> >
> >Dan, you work as a scientist right? A Chemist? I forget. My field is
> >Computation Science (Computer Science)
>
>
>
> So, is the flowchart that appears in the finished documentation the one you
>
> drew before you wrote a single line of code and followed rigorously (the
> proper method of program design as taught in textbooks),
That method is no-longer the one in modern textbooks. see waterfall vs.
iterative.
>or is it a diagram
>
> which illustrates how the finished code works?
Unless requested by a client or an employer, the code illustrates how the
finished code works. But then we are talking about an engeneering practice.
Science is another matter.
Even in science the "iterative" approach which Dan was talking about was not
something to which I was disagreeing...Absolutly Not.
Pardon me if I use a very simple example in a vary narrow range of
possibilities to exemplify this.
Two engeneers trained in CS are discussing how to design a codeset.
Engeneer (a) wants to use design A and engineer (b) wants to use design B.
(a) thinks that B will have performance issues, and (b) believes A to be too
complex.
What do they do?
They define what they mean into a hypothesis. If neither can write a proof
that the either is incorrect, then they write some simple prototypes and test
them.
Sometimes (a) and (b) are the same person.
Jan
=====
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Jan William Coffey
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