Wikipedia:Scientific peer review/Science

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Article is presently in regular Peer Review process. Help is requested on the scientific specifics of the materials with a goal toward feature article status. Any help would be welcomed. Jtmichcock 16:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Recommendation
Science: This is the first article to be reviewed by WP:SPR, chosen quite arbitrarily. Karol 23:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Samsara

 * Specific comments:

1.
 * Science [...] refers to a system of acquiring knowledge — based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism — aimed at finding out the truth.

Disagree: science is an exercise in model selection. Truth is not attainable. This is actually admitted later in the article, so the intro should not contradict it!

2.
 * The basic unit of knowledge is the theory, which is a hypothesis that is predictive.

Again, this reviewer prefers use of the word "model" instead of "theory".

3.
 * It should be noted that in (at least) German, Russian, Finnish, and Scandinavian languages, the word corresponding to "science" (German Wissenschaft) still carries this meaning.

This is factually incorrect; science can be translated into German as Wissenschaft, which means "the sciences", including social science etc., or as "Naturwissenschaft", which does actually mean science. So an exact translation does exist, rendering the quoted statement incorrect.

4.

Link to "behavioral biology" should be to ethology or behavioural ecology.

5.
 * Opponents of the division also point out that each of the current "hard sciences" suffered a similar "lack of rigor" in its own infancy.

Do we need to know what reply was made to this? E.g. population genetics is a field that was mathematical right from the start; same for quantitative genetics.

6.
 * it is important that this preference does not bias their interpretation.

Recommend expanding to include the notion that bias is avoided by correct experimental design, and that most false conclusions stem from an experimental design unsuited to the question whose answer is attempted.

7.
 * Resting on reason and logic, such as the principle of Occam's Razor, scientific theories are formulated and the most promising theory is selected after analysing the collected evidence.

Please also refer to the term "parsimony".

8.
 * Some thinkers see mathematicians as scientists, regarding physical experiments as inessential or mathematical proofs as equivalent to experiments. Others do not see mathematics as a science, since it does not require experimental test of its theories and hypotheses.

Mention proof by contradiction, attempts to disprove theorems by finding exceptions.

9.

The major failing of the article is its omission of the peer review process itself, which is at the core of scientific progress, and also can be held accountable for most of its fault in the opinion of this reviewer. In any case, it is absolutely crucial to discuss!


 * Suggestions

10.

Should this article have more quotations, e.g.
 * "Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful." - George EP Box (usually credited)
 * "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?" - Einstein


 * Comments subject to second opinion:

11.
 * According to empiricism, scientific theories are objective, empirically testable, and predictive — they predict empirical results that can be checked and possibly contradicted.

Not sure what "objective" means in this case. Seems redundant.

12.
 * Obtaining and processing crime scene evidence (forensics)
 * Investigating the causes of a disaster (such as a bridge collapse or airline crash)

I have seen the latter referred to as forensics as well.

13.

I wonder whether Tinbergen's four "why"s should be discussed, as they illuminate a compartmentalisation of causality that may be applicable beyond biology - would this be original research or has it been published?

User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Recommendation

Accept with revision. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 09:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Linas
The section on Philosophy of science contains the statement:
 * Atomic theory, for example, implies that a granite boulder which appears a heavy, hard, solid, grey object is actually a combination of subatomic particles with none of these properties, moving very rapidly in an area consisting mostly of empty space.

This is incorrect, based on an appearent misunderstanding of the Bohr model. The only subatomic particles that would perceive a boulder to be "mostly empty space" are the neutrinos. Ordinary particles, such as photons, electrons, neutrons protons and *everything else* will perceive the boulder to be quite solid and not at all "empty space". linas 02:43, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Non-Board comments
Surely somebody who is capable of reading articles such as this one from the perspect of the average well-informed reader ought to vet the article first to correct sentences such as: "Many mathematical methods have fundamental utility in the empirical sciences, of which the fruits are hypotheses and theories." What this sentence is actually saying is that certain mathematical methods have utility, and that their fundamental utility is in the empirical sciences. I'm not sure what a "non-empirical" science would be. Anyway, the sentence implies that the same mathematical units also have secondary, tertiary... utility someplace else. Is that true? Is that relevant? What use is the reader supposed to make of this purported information? The sentence also implies that the only fruits of the empirical sciences may be hypotheses and theories. That sentence may be true, in a restricted sense, but it seems to imply that the theories would not have utility. The reader shouldn't be put in the position of having to try to figure out what the writer must have intended to say. P0M 03:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Non-Board member name with link to userpage

 * Patrick Moran P0M 03:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC) (I have a Ph.D., but not in the hard sciences.)

Final Conclusion
I have incorporated most if not all the suggestions made here, although some had already been done. Of course the interpretation of how to incorporate these suggestions is mine alone, not that of the people who contributed to this review. This review is now archived and, I suggest, closed. --Bduke 00:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)