Talk:Protocol (science)

I plan to start updating this page soon. Some of the issues that need addressed is are the various goals and purpose of scientific protocals. These fall into various categories;:  Safety Equipment Bias Reporting  These can include subcategories like the role of statistics and sample size, predefining exclusion data etc. How the Scientific method plays a major role and the limitations of applicability in some sciences. The abuses resulting from improper protocals. This is not a complete list. If you have any ideas I would love to hear about it. I will be working out the framework before updating the page.

It has occurred to me that either this page should be Scientific protocal or Scientific protocal should redirect here since most people seaching will more likely find it that way. Any input?

Link notes;  Clinical trial protocol  --My wan 05:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

First 2 paragraphs updated. Better reflects the entire feild of natural sciences.

--My wan 08:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Got the basic outline done. In need of references. May have gotten carried away with too much in "See Also" section. Will begin listing pages for trackbacks soon.

--My wan 23:23, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, My wan, it is excellent that you have expanded this entry.

When I started it, I really wanted to try to clarify the differences between methods, protocols and standard operating procedures. Especially the latter two. In my mind, and in that of a large proportion of the scientific community, a protocol is more open to being adapted or changed than a standard operating procedure. A protocol being closer to what a research scientist would use (a starting point with the understanding that it would be optimised for the specicific question that the researcher would want to answer), and an SOP being closer to what an analyst at a pharmaceutical company would use - the latter being more tightly regulated and needing to be followed absolutely exactly.

I am also not really sure what you mean about an SOP being incorporated into a protocol. I wonder if you could clarify this for my benefit here, and perhaps consider clarifying in the main text. --Bdekker 17:10, 10 March 2007

A standard operating procedure is not written specifically enough for some activities but the proceedures in it may be required in some cases.

--My wan 09:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Unbalanced viewpoint tag
The article seems to be written from a specific viewpoint regarding certain attributes of a protocol, particularly the discussions of bias and statistics. SOPs may or may not be used, and are typically used in applied sciences, in clinical labs and in indurstrial test labs. A more balanced view of many aspects should be presented. --Zeamays (talk) 19:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You claim here a SOP but fail to specify in any manner whatsoever what points of view have been neglected. Certainly we can no more neglect POVs than we can restrict the page to particular POVs. I will leave the POV tag up the remainder of this year (2008) to provide an opportunity for a response as to why it should stay or be fixed. The response can be in the form of explanations and/or examples what what was neglected. If the tag is removed prior to a response it may be re-added but please provide the information asked for here in doing so.

--My wan (talk) 16:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I thought the tag was self-evident, particularly in light of the (brief) examples I cited above.. I don't think I need to write a thesis about the lopsided views. Apparently, you didn't read what I wrote in the section above. To reiterate, the article generalizes about certain characteristics of protocols which are not necessarily applicable to all the diverse fields of science and engineering in which protocols are used. This is not to say that those aspects of protocols are wrong, just that they aren't general.  Instead of arguing about POV, why don't you return to editing the article itself. My intention is to begin doing that myself to make the improvements I see are needed. --Zeamays (talk) 02:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see any examples, brief or otherwise. All I see is the claim that the lopsidedness pertains particularly to the bias and statistics sections. I am willing to improve it further to meet whatever deficiencies may exist. I'm not asking for a thesis, a simple (even singular) example of what has been omitted would suffice. Without this I have no idea what concepts have been omitted and/or what points of view are short changed. Saying that they particularly pertain to "attributes" of the bias and statistics sections says nothing about what "attributes" are deemed to be neglected. Neither does stating where SOPs are typically used specify what is deemed to be neglected.

It wasn't even claimed in the article that SOPs are universal in a scientific protocol, only that many feilds of study use them. Following this are list of elements that may be relevant to any given protocol. Would simply specifying in the overview that specific elements may or may not be relevant in a given protocol suffice? The biggest issue I have is that you specified bias and statistics in particular. These are the two that are truely universal, even for the most mundane measurements and/or claim. Though they may sometimes be skirted by specifying the equipement used. The equipement specifications then determines the bias and statistics. Even then there's a presumption that the fundamental accurancy is not strongly sensitive indicator of the claims. Even that is implicitly a statistical claim, even if trivially so.

--My wan (talk) 15:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I have seen many protocols involving non-numerical data that have no components dealing with bias and statistics. Other protocols have none because statistics aren't involved in some research. Bias is not an issue when the data aren't subject to it. In some labs, bias and statistics are covered by separate SOPs, so those issues don't need to be included in every protocol. These are just a few examples, but the whole article needs generalizing. --Zeamays (talk) 21:53, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I have rewritten most sections to make them more generalized (to try to reflect the wide range of issues that may or may not be included in a protocol) and deleted extraneous issues not directly related to protocols per se (such as the discussion of ethics). Therefore, I have removed the unbalanced viewpoint tag. This article still needs references. --Zeamays (talk) 03:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Not bad. I have no major objections so far. I would submit that ethics has in fact been a major issue in every area of science, physical, biological, etc. Not only in cheating but also human/animal experimentation etc. The protocol in fact defines what ethics is used, whether explicitly specified or not. In out right cheating the protocols defined or implied are generally what you want to consider when activities become suspect. At the very least a brief mention and a Research ethics link to mintain a balanced viewpoint.--My wan (talk) 13:46, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Scientific protocol in social sciences
Scientific protocol redirects here. It looks to me like it would be best to reverse that--as the lead of this article notes, "Protocols are employed in a wide range of fields, from social science to quantum mechanics." Most of what's in this article applies to either, so it seems like specifying "natural sciences" is a limitation which isn't needed. C RETOG 8(t/c) 16:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Noticed myself and renamed to Protocol (Science). François Robere (talk) 17:58, 11 April 2014 (UTC)