To what extent does the scientific method allow us to uncover truth?
The scientific method consists of five steps: first, observing and recollecting information. Second, creating or formulating a hypothesis. Thirdly, scientists experiment, with the information and the observations they have made so as to reach to a conclusion, which is the fourth step. Finally, the last step consists in the communication, which is when you tell society about a new discovery or theory and the verification of this conclusion, in order to see if it is valid or not. Along this method there are lots of perceptions which are made, such as sense perception or induction, which may limit this method. What I will try to analyze along this essay is if the scientific method allows us or not to uncover truth. In order to do so, I will analyze whether the scientific method gives us absolute or provisional truth and how it gives us that truth. To start with, the scientific method can allow us to uncover truth. It is needed to say that it allow us to uncover provisional truth. Truth can be provisional because we accept it may change over time, as new discoveries are made and the supposedly “truth” is no longer but it’s replaced by another and new “truth”. We accept one statement as true or not according to its degree of objectivity. Scientific method recollects empirical evidence, which is measurable and comparable and allows for the application of consistency tests. The application of consistency tests reduces the impact of subjectivity and the limitations of sense perception in the recollection of evidence. This allows us to construct explanations that are objective enough for society to define these explanations as provisional truth.
Furthermore, as the scientific method is a very rigorous and complex method. Scientists do observation, formulation of a hypothesis, experimentation, they reach a conclusion and they then communicate and verify this conclusion. These steps