Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum Does science require reproducible experiments?

To what extent?

A few items to mull over and discuss. This could rightly go in the real science forum, but since I want to collect insights and opinions, I figure down here is as good a place as any.

Do we have to see something to accept it with reasonable certainty as a fact - at least tentatively?

Do we have to be able to conduct reproducible experiments to consider something science?

Do those experiments have to be in a controlled lab situation?

What are the requirements to call something an experiment?

Here's start:

What are the requirements to call something an experiment?

A test aimed at gaining, or verifying, specific knowledge.

Any advance on that?

Query on N1.? Does this mean an individual or collective experience? I have never seen (for eg) the new Olympic Stadium in Beijing but I think it is there. So no we do not have to see something to accept it as a fact.

Or do you mean something less pragmatic?

Do we have to see something to accept it with reasonable certainty as a fact - at least tentatively?

No. As per Ellis' example, in the course of our daily lives, although there are exceptions, we accept as fact (at least tentatively) most of the information we receive. We would probably learn very little if we felt compelled to question every item of information on every page of every book.

Do we have to be able to conduct reproducible experiments to consider something science?

If the experiment could be shown to be scientifically sound, then the results would amount to evidence. But if it couldn't be reproduced, then any theory based on its results would be in doubt. So the experiment is (good) science, irrespective of reproducibility, and the appropriate treatment of the results is also (good) science.

Good question....my take?

Science doesn't require reproducible experiments/observations. It requires experiments/observations to be reproducible. Is it a subtlety, perhaps, but I think an important one.

Taking Ellis' example. We hypothesis that the Olympic stadium in Beijing is standing. Somebody (not necessarily Ellis) observes this to be a fact. Our hypothesis is now a theory. Should somebody disagree with this hypothesis (now theory), they can easily reproduce the observation that led the hypothesis to become a theory. Should somebody travel to Beijing, and saw the Olympic stadium incomplete, the theory and hypothesis would be falsified.

Science requires theories and hypothesis' to be verified/falsified through observations that can be reproduced. It doesn't mean that they have to be continuously tested by the individual. Just as long as they've been tested at some point by the collective.

Which neatly underlines the answer to: "Do we have to see something to accept it with reasonable certainty as a fact - at least tentatively?" - negative.

"Do we have to be able to conduct reproducible experiments to consider something science?"

could you give an example?

There is no question in my mind that an experiment must be reproducable. This does not imply that we have to reproduce it, simply that any person, any where, under simmilar conditions should get the same result. If not, either the experiment is flawed or the person checking it. If you or anyone else can't repeat what you did, what you have done means nothing. That is the whole point of science, the ablity to take something that someone else has done and aply it to what you are doing (reproducability).

A substantial portion of science uses the nonrepeatable observations as the main source of information about subject.

Non-repeatable observations may contribute to an experiment but they are not the experiment themselves. Whilst they are part of the collected data and a source of information, main or not, such observations are not the experiment. Surely the whole point of a successful experiment is that it must be repeatable.