A Scientist doesn't test a idea from making conclusions right?

Answer 1

He does test it as he can not reach conclusion without it.

Answer 2

1) Pluto has nothing to do with the scientific method. Nobody changed the fact of its existence, just its categorization in a list.

2) A good scientist never says they've proven anything to be true. From a philosophical standpoint you can only prove things to be false.

For example, what is I say all tigers are orange with black stripes. I wander the jungles for years finding orange and black tigers. Have I proven tigers are orange and black? No. I can say that tigers are very likely to be orange and black. Why? What happens when I go to the zoo and see a white tiger. Now I have proven "all tigers are orange and black" to be false, but most of my evidence says they are.

This is why scientists use a null hypothesis. If you want to "prove" something, you have to disprove the opposite. If you can't be 100% sure, then you report the probability that you were right.

So, scientists don't make conclusions in the sense that they don't ever say something is 100% one way or the other. They do conclude that something is more or less likely to be the truth based on the evidence. This is why soem of teh great scientific discoveries of all time are called theories (Relativity, Evolution, etc.) Noone has been abel to prove them wrong, yet, so we accept them as true, but they are still only a theory in the scientific sense.

Answer 3

The problem, as I see it, with "the scientific method", is that it isn't "all its cracked up to be". Take the subject of Pluto, since its discovery, the world in general and school kids in specific, read in their science textbooks that it is a planet. Now, after approx. 60 years, other scientists proclaim: "Oops, we made a mistake! It's not a planet anymore !" So much for that being a "scientific fact".

I understand that new evidence may come to light, but, not everything in the natural world is as it seems and certain absolutes considered to be "scientific facts", in my opinion need to be rethought.

Answer 4

you use logic to set up a test and make conclusions from that

Answer 5

I would think he would test to see if it actually worked as expected. He then would move on to testing its limits ( what circumstances it fails).