Misconception Scientific Method

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The misconception about the Methods of Scientific Investigation or the Nature of Science is that many people believe that there can only be a general and universal scientific methods that exists to conduct scientific research. It is believed that a specific series of steps is supposedly followed by all research scientists. “This myth have been with schools all over the United States ever since it was propelled by Karl Pearson in 1937.”(Williams, slide 3) The so called “Scientific Method” is a certain procedure that includes a defining a problem, gathering background information, form a hypothesis, make observations, test the hypothesis, and finally draw a conclusion. This misconception was so widespread because it was general scientific method that was presented to students. The standardized style makes it appear that scientists follow a standard research plan. “Also, philosopher of science who have studied scientists at work have shown that no research methods is applied universally.”( Williams, slide 6) This causes the assumption that this is the only way that scientific research is done and all scientists follow only this method. But in reality, there is no such thing as a certain scientific method that scientist are…show more content…
It starts off with “formulating a question, researching the question, forming a hypothesis, conducting an experiment to test the hypothesis, analyze the collected data, and finally drawing a conclusion.” (mularella, slide 4) If and only when the results of the experiments did not match with the hypothesis, will the experiments needs to be redone and try to improve the hypothesis so that the results of the experiment will prove the hypothesis. Contrary to the scientific method, many students and scientist do not follow this particular order. Steps can be reversed or done before one

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