Scientific method

Matthew Gregory

Matthew Gregory

Chief Executive in charge of Entertainment
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I thought it might be interesting to post this thread, as I suspect many think that science is about having all the answers, and nothing could be further from the truth. Science is about posing a question, postulating an answer, and proving that answer wrong - or, worded slightly differently - science isn't about answers, it's about posing questions to find answers.
Here are the widely accepted steps of the scientific method, as described at the website for the Centers of Disease Control (why them? they seemed like a good source!):
Steps of the scientific method

1. Name the problem (or question)
2. Form an educated guess (hypothesis)
of the cause of the problem (or question) and make
predictions based upon the hypothesis
3. Test your hypothesis by doing an
experiment or study (with proper controls)
4. Check and interpret your results
5. Report your results to the scientific
community


Each one of these steps is critical to the process.

I have selfish reasons for posting this, and instead of bothering to explain why, I figured it would be more beneficial if I gave an example of what the scientific method isn't:

-For the sake of discussion, let's take the FACT that I have not been involved in a car accident on my way to work in over ten years.
-It is also a FACT that I have worked for the same company for over ten years.
-It's a FACT that I have driven a car to work every day for over ten years.
-It is also a FACT that I've used the exact same travel mug to hold a cup of tea, which I drank - in my car, on my way to work - every day I went work, for over ten years.

Without scientific method (and applying ALL of it's steps), it is entirely plausible for me to apply the above facts and conclude that I have not been involved in a car accident because I drink a cup of tea from the same travel mug.

I'm guessing (and hoping!) that you can see that this type of logic is flawed. There are many that are willing to accept these conclusions, or - worse yet - claim that the conclusions were reached using factual information!

I'm also guessing that you won't need to reach too far to see where this might apply to our craft, as well.
 
Yep, The old, " It always worked for me!" proof isn't necessarily proof at all.
Stacy
 
I heard a similar scenario in which you notice that every time you are on an airplane flight and the fasten seat belt light comes on enroute, the plane starts shaking. In this model, there is actual statistical evidence that supports the hypothesis that the fasten seat belt light causes the plane to shake.

Have you CC'd your post to Al Gore??
 
Well said, Matt! Roger Bacon would be proud of you. :)

History is littered with the remains of "conclusions" drawn with poor logic.

Knifemaking is certainly far from immune to pseudo-science and poorly drawn conclusions, so your point here is certainly relevant.
 
I suspect the problem doesn't lie with finding a result that is good enough, but being happy with good enough, and never striving for better.
 
Matt,

As a practicing scientiist and a professor at a university, I will concur with what you have said. The fascinating thing about science to me is that we are always self-correcting ourselves. I actually have publications that I produced earlier that I now completely disagree with. This is simply because the weight of evidence progressed to the state where we have abondoned some of our earlier theories. The challenge, for us personally is to divorce our egos from our pet theories and be willing to accept accumulating evidence as it comes to light.

This is a great framework for improving our knowledge base. I think the basis of your post however, is that the public often gets it the exact opposite. Most science professionals recognize that there is a 'truth' out there but it is 'fuzzy' and a bit intangiable in absolute terms. We progress towards the truth by knocking off null hypotheses and taking weight of evidence approaches to conform what we think is right, or at the 'least worst explanation' of the available evidence.

Facts and laws (Science has abondoned laws now - since we proved most of the old ones to be invalid) or now legal language and not scientific language. Great post!
 
Matt, the most critical part in your line up, where I see most folks get into trouble, is step 4, assuming that step 3 is done correctly so as not just to become a gimmic to validate step 2. But if everything is done correctly allowing the process to work, step 4 is the weakest link and where obejective facts often become political tools.

By the way good luck with this thread! I have simply avoided using the word "science" in my posts these days since some people have the same knee-jerk reaction to it that the ACLU has to a nativity scene;).
 
What kind of hocus pocus are you trying to force on us! Any fool can see that the type of tea you drink every morning on the way to work is the real reason you havent gotten into an acident in ten years. Keeps you calm and alert.
Science is for boobs.




mmmmm...boobs.:D
Mace
 
Good post! Being a dirty engineer instead of a scientist, I'll add one further hint.

As you evolve new hypothesis and experiments, only change one thing at a time.
 
dlpierson said:
.....As you evolve new hypothesis and experiments, only change one thing at a time.
Click to expand...

That's an excellent recommendation for knifemaking.

Not that one can't experiment with multiple variables at once. "Back in the day" of the 70's, we used to do experimental design to test multi-variate interactions using a factorial design method developed by Dupont called "Strategy for Experimentation".
IIRC, 3 variables took 31 experiments using a high-low-midpoint array followed by a bunch of exhaustive arithmetic calculations on a calculator to test for significance that were a real PITA in pre-desktop computer days. :grumpy::) Those were fun days, when finding a 0.5% yield improvement in a chemical process could result in $50million/year cost savings.
 
dude
you drink tea on the way to work. that is so friggin gay. is it herbal tea?? is it some kind of artsian blend ? do you put honey and lemon zest in it to bring out its nuances and enhance its nose?
the only drink, besides burbon ,that a man should drink on the way to work is coffee . and that should be drank with just a drop of milk ,to make it strong, bitter and murky. like mace likes his woman.
you do however raise a very good and logical point. which must have been hard during your menstral cycle.:D:D:D:D:D
 
Fitzo beat me to it.
When I used to develop a chemical process, I would do hundreds of runs of the same process.....each done three times with only one change ( to rule out an error of fluke). Once I was able to determine which things seemed to have an effect, I would make smaller changes until I had the optimal formulation. Just as in knife making, things are not always linear. If you do a process for 1 gallon of some chemical it will not work the same as multiplying the ingredients but 100 and making 100 gallons (or 10,000 gallons. That is what I did, ran a pilot plant to figure out how to make large batches of things that the lab had only made in tiny amounts. Mistakes are costly at big quantities. I would make 1 gallon, them 10, then 100, and finally 1000. If all was well we sent the process to the main plant for 10,000 gallon runs.)

In knife making it pays well to stick to as few variables as possible. Learn one steel well before switching out to others. If developing you ability to make a optimally designed blade, it may be necessary to make (and destroy in testing) many blades. Only change one thing ( as much as this is actually possible in knife making) each time.
Try a different oil....but do everything else the same.
Try a higher temperature.....but use the same oil.
Change the clay thickness.....but don't change the quench temperature.
etc.,etc.,etc.

All this makes it sound like some scientist at a factory should have long ago figured out everything that was required to make the perfect knife. And there are data books full of charts and graphs that imply just that.
But, the thing that makes CUSTOM knives different from factory knives is the fact that there is still a magical element in taking a piece of steel and GUIDING it into becoming a high quality knife. NO book or professor can teach you this. It is the result of time and practice, with the human brain running many tests and extrapolating the results at a speed that would shame any computer. Each hammer blow, each pass across the grinder, each quench......they are all analyzed and the data stored for future reference by the brain and the results applied on the next hammer blow, or grind, or dunk.
So folks, give your poor tired brain a fighting chance and only change one thing at a time!

Stacy
 
anvilarms said:
dude
you drink tea on the way to work. that is so friggin gay. is it herbal tea?? is it some kind of artsian blend ? do you put honey and lemon zest in it to bring out its nuances and enhance its nose?
the only drink, besides burbon ,that a man should drink on the way to work is coffee . and that should be drank with just a drop of milk ,to make it strong, bitter and murky. like mace likes his woman.
you do however raise a very good and logical point. which must have been hard during your menstral cycle.:D:D:D:D:D
Click to expand...

Thank god for your presence, Keith - if not for you, I'd have to rely on Mace to provide the only post in a completely intellectual thread to mention boobs or homosexuality. Interestingly enough, Mace was the one that mentioned female anatomy...;)

Yes, I drink a cup of green tea on my way to work. AFTER my cup of coffee in the morning. Next time we get together, I'll make you a cup. If you're not so hyped up that you're trying to lick the paint off the walls after it, we'll do some knifemaking afterwards. If we manage to keep your heart from exploding after a cup of my coffee, I will ask you to apply scientific method to the experience to determine if it is not, in fact, the finest cup of coffee you have ever had.:D


I had an idea as to what I could expect from this thread, and so far it's been pretty close to my expectations... hopefully, this one won't shut down too quickly after this post - I'm worried that some might be intimidated by the idea of applying science to their process, and I want to stress the significance of it - in ALL of knifemaking!
 
Stacy an excellent post in which you are spot on, I agree with it all but I got a sinking feeling in my gut when I read this bit-
bladsmth said:
...But, the thing that makes CUSTOM knives different from factory knives is the fact that there is still a magical element in taking a piece of steel and GUIDING it into becoming a high quality knife. ...
Click to expand...
Not because I disagree with it, but I saw it as the toe hold for a "true believer" to jerk this thread into the same old direction they so often take. I think custom makers may actually be able to surpass an industrial firm if they stick to reality about the material they working and apply your suggestions to improve actaully useful processes beyond what the factories have time for. But it will always be easier just to produce a new reality and market it to a gullable population than to put in the enormous ammount of tedious labor required to make real progress with the principles this thread is about. Who ever heard of a get rich slow scheme??;)
 
Matthew Gregory said:
Thank god for your presence, Keith - if not for you, I'd have to rely on Mace to provide the only post in a completely intellectual thread to mention boobs or homosexuality. Interestingly enough, Mace was the one that mentioned female anatomy...;)

Yes, I drink a cup of green tea on my way to work. AFTER my cup of coffee in the morning. Next time we get together, I'll make you a cup. If you're not so hyped up that you're trying to lick the paint off the walls after it, we'll do some knifemaking afterwards. If we manage to keep your heart from exploding after a cup of my coffee, I will ask you to apply scientific method to the experience to determine if it is not, in fact, the finest cup of coffee you have ever had.:D


I had an idea as to what I could expect from this thread, and so far it's been pretty close to my expectations... hopefully, this one won't shut down too quickly after this post - I'm worried that some might be intimidated by the idea of applying science to their process, and I want to stress the significance of it - in ALL of knifemaking!
Click to expand...

i am sure that any intelligent debate that involves tai goo , kevin cashen as well as numerous and very interested knifemakers ; will not be detered by my obnoxious comments. often i comment to bring posts back to the top because they are of interest and pertinent. of course this motivation is secondary to ball breaking. i would hope intellectual discourse would continue; not withstanding my diatribe.:foot:

although some makers and hobbists do ,what they do ,for fun ; and are not necessarily motivated to optomise performance. the only true way to increase the scope of known knowledge is through experamentation. the process of the scientific method is known , and taught (even in elementry schools), as such is beacuse it works. limiting changes to individual variables in an orderly fashion works. the results must also be repeatable. not doing so is the reason the media jumps on these , so called , break through studies only to uncover another , life changing , study that contradicts the previous one. we often hear about flawed studies and skewed results because when examined the results are not repeatable ; enevitably because the scientific method was not followed.
 
A friend of mine (another Geologist) is fond of saying the "science is a verb."

The control and use of testing is the key to doing good science. The best experiments strictly control the degrees of freedom with only one independent variable. If more than one condition is changed in any given trial the outcome may be changed by interaction between the variables. The results may become non-linear and may not give usuable or predictable results.
 
In metallurgy we have some synergistic effects [ 2+3=7 !!] .That makes it more interesting....The worst thing in science are the many who are not real scientists because they have closed minds !! They refuse to consider new ideas because that's not what they learned in school ! Consider the space studies where something new is found every month which no one knew about and didn't think could exist.The real scientists then rewrite the theories and keep looking for more new things.
 
Peer review is the final step: others must be able to reach the same results based on your conclusions.
 
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