The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science - The Department ...

Chapter 7
Experiment
and Observation 1
James Bogen
Introduction
People once believed a fabulous engine called the Scientific Method harvests
empirical evidence through observation and experimentation, discards subjective,
error ridden chaff, and delivers objective, veridical residues from which to spin
threads of knowledge. Unfortunately, that engine is literally fabulous. Lacking a
single method whose proper application always yields epistemically decisive results,
real-world scientists make do with messy, quirky techniques and devices for producing
and interpreting empirical data which proliferate as investigators improvise
fixes for practical and theoretical problems which bedevil their research. 2 Their
evolution is punctuated rather than linear – marked as much by abandonment and
modification of previously accepted tools and techniques as by conservation and
accumulation.
Failing as they did to take into account the diversity and malleability of observational
and experimental practice, twentieth century philosophers of science who
tried to derive highly general a priori epistemic directives from theories of logic,
rationality, judgment, and the like, have been unable to answer important questions
about the design and conduct of scientific research. This chapter’s moral is
that because of this failure, philosophers of science should pay more attention to
nuts and bolts details of observation and experimentation.
Although experiment and observation are undertaken to further a great many
different purposes (including discovering new effects for scientists to explain,
filling in, and correcting details of theories, developing, calibrating, and figuring
out fruitful applications of equipment) I will be concentrating on just one – the
production and interpretation of data for use in testing theoretical claims and practical
ideas about their applications. 3
I’ll use a single term “empirical” in connection with both observation and
experiment (along with their equipment, techniques, epistemics, etc.). William
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