The Scientific method of obtaining facts are by the Elements of Empiricism ,Determination ,Parsimony and Testability.
When knowledge is derived from later stages of parsimony it may not easily be recognised and classified as speculation and not scientific.
Example ,if the assumption of 2 people as being in a room is solid( parsimony),I need not observe directly( empicism) to infer that the number of people in a room is 1( determinism) when I have information that 1 person has left the room( truth).This truth is repeatable despite location( Testability).
Should one work with inferences ( Principles that have been attested),are the products thereof not scientific enough.
Fixation to the direct basic elements of scientific method as the proof of an outcome being scientific may be an error.
Are the supra observation bias laden?
Critique.
Some attention needs to be paid to Imre Lakatos's improvements on Popper's simplistic views regarding falsification:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lakatos/#ImprPoppScie
Should not the Perception of Truth(say a figure,6) be approached by a more broader consideration and consultation as in seeing the same figure6, by looking at it from another angle and calling it 9?
Should not the value of Truth( say,a figure 6) not be subjected to a more indepth analysis and understanding to define its value as 6 and not 9 despite the reference angle of percept?
Should not one allow time with forbearance explore the truth especially when one is differently endowed to observe understand,explain and apply?
Should one thus not seek the truth with a more humane holistic approach?
The Deficit in the well-grounded Traditional Scientific Method,say the 1% exposed,might as well be covered by the Alternative,Plan B.
Mark Kobina Sobotie
Karl Pfeifer
It concerns me that traditional, or paradigmatic, methods, expectations, and terms are not more openly questioned. E.g., who can question the existence of truth or facts? And if these are questionable, what does it tell us about the nature of knowledge?
Respectfully submitted, Kurt
@L Kurt Engelhart -Thanks for the contribution,sublime and mediating.
Defining a “Fact”
A fact is understood here to be a verifiable literal description of a real phenomenon as an ideal element of a universal systemic whole. In this context, phenomena are products of individual consciousness. A fact, therefore, is a literal claim to universal status for the ideal meaning an individual has attached to a real phenomenon present to their consciousness.
All theory that aspires to the ontological status of “scientific” is made up of facts, and the relationships between facts, in the sense used here. Clearly, systems of facts and the ideal structures in which they are embedded compete, on a collective and literal level, with other similarly described systems for this prime ontological status. They compete precisely because no such literal description of a system can ever completely and consistently describe all real human phenomenal data.
These systems, which are propositions about the real phenomenal data, address only those facts that are relevant to a particular ideal structure, leaving perpetually open the possibility that any such system will ever ultimately describe all the data. As a result of our understanding of a “fact,” we also understand the necessity of a distinction, on the one hand, between the real and ideal for an individual person and, on the other hand, between the literal and universal for a collective of people.
Maintaining this distinction is further complicated by our tendency, in constructing systemic wholes, to interpolate and extrapolate from experienced phenomena, the realm of empirical inquiry, to phenomena that are only implied in completion of the whole, the realm of interpretive inquiry and philosophy. A significant example of extrapolation, one essential to phenomenology, is the inferred existence of other consciousnesses, which can never be experienced as real phenomena.
(PDF) Wholeness and the Rational Structure of Inquiring Systems: A Dissertation https://www.amazon.com/Wholeness-Rational-Structure-Inquiring-Systems-ebook/dp/B00KMA1SPO/. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351884945_Wholeness_and_the_Rational_Structure_of_Inquiring_Systems_A_Dissertation_httpswwwamazoncomWholeness-Rational-Structure-Inquiring-Systems-ebookdpB00KMA1SPO [accessed Aug 04 2021].
Re -DefiningFact ( The Steoreotypy of Traditional Scientific Method)
"A fact is understood here to be a verifiable literal description of a real phenomenon as an ideal element of a universal systemic whole"
May I continue by registering my gratitude for the exhaustive approach in defining a fact.In a spirit to learn,desirous to know more with inquisitorial mind,grateful if you could expand for me the feature of the "Ideal Element":,pivotal,in defining a fact,supra.
What could be the limits of the "Ideal Element" of the Universal Systemic whole? Are there Principles or criteria for defining their limits so as to provide a universal standard(unskewed) that gives what we refer to as fact a universal and enduring quality?
Respectfully submitted.
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