Nature - autonomous learning

Issues and principles of scientific methodthe dis/unity of geography 195There are six issues and principles of physical geographer’s method thatI want briefly to consider. First, induction is part and parcel of physicalgeographers’ investigative practice. But it is accepted that it cannot be itssole basis. Literally defined, induction means (i) forming an impressionabout the real world from a process of pure, presuppositionless observationand (ii) making generalisations about a class of phenomena on the basisof specific observed set of the same phenomena. Induction is thus the ideathat generalisations can be made (inferences) if a specific set of facts areallowed to ‘speak for themselves’ through objective observation.Thoughphysical geographers do undertake preliminary observations of thebiophysical world at the start of any analysis, it is understood that this cannever be a ‘pure’ process leading to equally pure hunches about what onehas observed and what explains it. Rather, as Popper pointed out decadesago, at the start of any research project scientists have (i) already decidedwhat kinds of phenomena are worth observing and (ii) they already havean idea why these phenomena are as they are on the basis of previousresearch.The physicist Werner Heisenberg (1958: 12) expressed it thus:‘What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our methodof questioning’. In this sense, any initial observations of the physicalenvironment are seen to be theory-laden (though not necessarily theorydetermined).What’smore, generalising from a limited set of observationsis seen as always precarious because future observations might underminethe generalisations made.Second, there is frequently a deductive dimension to scientific methodin physical geography. Burt (2003a: 59), for example, claims that ‘thesedays, physical geography is firmly esconced as a deductive science’. Deductioninvolves reasoning from known laws, theories or models to as yet unknownor unresearched phenomena likely to be explicable in terms of those laws,theories and models.The researcher deduces what did, should or will occuron the basis of established ‘empirical truths’ (yielded by previous research),established ‘logical truths’ (e.g. those specified by mathematicians andstatisticians) and factual information about the case being researched(‘initial conditions’: see Box 4.2). 10 Even so, Marshall (1985) is right topoint out that all empirical research (in physical geography and beyond)is ultimately inductive in the obvious sense that it rests on data that maybe contradicted by future studies.Third, when through a combination of