Scientific Method: Steps, Principles, and Applications
The Scientific Method
The scientific method is an ordered set of procedures that uses scientific research to observe the extent of our knowledge. We can conceive the scientific method as a structure, a framework consisting of consistently concatenated rules and principles. The scientific method is perhaps one of the most useful or appropriate methods, as it can provide answers to our questions. Answers are not obtained immediately as true, pure, and complete, without having gone through error. This means that the scientific method comes to us as a process, not an act which immediately passes from ignorance to truth. This is perhaps the most useful or appropriate, since it alone possesses the characteristics and capacity for self-addressing and overcoming, but the scientific method is not unique. It is the maximum conquest obtained by the intellect to decipher and manage knowledge. It consists of 5 key steps that have been developed over many generations and with the concurrence of many scholars.
Five Steps of the Scientific Method
Preliminary Observation
This is the collection of facts about a problem or a natural phenomenon that arouses our curiosity. Observations should be as clear and as many as possible, because they serve as a starting point for the solution.
Hypothesis
The explanation we give to the observed fact. Its utility is that it gives us an interpretation of the facts available, an interpretation that should be tested by further observations and experiments. Hypotheses should never be taken as true, because a single observed fact can be explained by several hypotheses. The purpose of a good hypothesis is to encourage us to do more experiments and observations.
Experimentation
Consists of verification or testing of the hypothesis. The experiment determines the validity of the possible explanations we have given and decides whether a hypothesis is accepted or discarded.
Theory
It is a hypothesis which has been implicated in a number of facts about the same phenomenon that is intriguing. Some authors consider that the theory is nothing more than a hypothesis in which they consider as many facts and the explanation which we have built is more likely to be tested positively.
Law
It is a collection of facts derived from observations and experiments properly collected, classified, and interpreted to be considered proven. In other words, the law is nothing but a hypothesis that has been demonstrated by experiment. The law allows us to predict the development and evolution of any natural phenomenon.
…more effective functional level and metabolism of an organism at the micro (cellular) and macro-social level.
The disease is a process and the consequent status of a living condition characterized by an alteration of its ontological status of health. The state and/or disease process can be caused by many factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic to the sick body; these factors are called insults.
Health: is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. That is, the concept of health transcends the absence of diseases and conditions. In other words, health can be defined as the level of functional and metabolic effectiveness of a body at the micro (cellular) and macro-social level.