Encyclopedia of Science | Scientific Method

• "The scientific method"
• Words to Know
• Laws and theories
• What science can and cannot do

The term scientific method refers in general to the procedures that scientists follow in obtaining true statements about the natural world. As it happens, scientists actually use all manner of procedures to obtain the information they want. Some of those procedures are not very objective, not very formal, and not very systematic. Still, the "ground rules" by which science tends to operate are distinctive and very different from those by which "true statements" are produced in philosophy, the arts, history, ethics, and other fields of human endeavor.

"The scientific method"

Many science textbooks begin with an exposition of a system of...