section_path: Scientific research/Scientific method
section_name: Scientific method
paragraph_text: Scientific method
  
  Scientific research involves using the scientific method, which seeks to objectively explain the events of nature in a reproducible way. Scientists usually take for granted a set of basic assumptions that are needed to justify the scientific method: there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers; this objective reality is governed by natural laws; these laws were discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation. Mathematics is essential in the formation of hypotheses, theories, and laws, because it is used extensively in quantitative modelling, observing, and collecting measurements. Statistics is used to summarise and analyse data, which allows scientists to assess the reliability of experimental results.
  
  In the scientific method an explanatory thought experiment or hypothesis is put forward as an explanation using parsimony principles and is expected to seek consilience – fitting with other accepted facts related to an observation or scientific question. This tentative explanation is used to make falsifiable predictions, which are typically posted before being tested by experimentation. Disproof of a prediction is evidence of progress. Experimentation is especially important in science to help establish causal relationships to avoid the correlation fallacy, though in some sciences such as astronomy or geology, a predicted observation might be more appropriate.
  
  When a hypothesis proves unsatisfactory it is modified or discarded. If the hypothesis survives testing, it may become adopted into the framework of a scientific theory, a validly reasoned, self-consistent model or framework for describing the behaviour of certain natural events. A theory typically describes the behaviour of much broader sets of observations than a hypothesis; commonly, a large number of hypotheses can be logically bound together by a single theory. Thus, a theory is a hypothesis explaining various other hypotheses. In that vein, theories are formulated according to most of the same scientific principles as hypotheses. Scientists may generate a model, an attempt to describe or depict an observation in terms of a logical, physical or mathematical representation, and to generate new hypotheses that can be tested by experimentation.
  
  While performing experiments to test hypotheses, scientists may have a preference for one outcome over another. Eliminating the bias can be achieved through transparency, careful experimental design, and a thorough peer review process of the experimental results and conclusions. After the results of an experiment are announced or published, it is normal practice for independent researchers to double-check how the research was performed, and to follow up by performing similar experiments to determine how dependable the results might be. Taken in its entirety, the scientific method allows for highly creative problem solving while minimising the effects of subjective and confirmation bias. Intersubjective verifiability, the ability to reach a consensus and reproduce results, is fundamental to the creation of all scientific knowledge.