There are many misconceptions about science, like science is just about "data", "objectivity", "research" and all that "boring" stuff. They say that the world of imagination and subjectivity is much more interesting than the cut and dry objectivity of science. Actually that couldn't be any more further than the truth, since science has a lot to do with creativity and imagination, as all science starts with an IDEA, an idea about how the world might work, and then that idea gets tested and experimented against reality. All great scientists, Galileo, Darwin, Newton, Einstein, etc, all started off with an idea about how the world might work, and they were quite often ingenious and creative ideas, which then they have tested against reality to see if their ideas were right.

Of course, science, actual science requires a lot of care, meticulousness, precision, data gathering, research, etc, which could be left to academics and actual practicing scientists, while for us laymen and amateurs, we could just learn the basics of how science works.

So perhaps you can get started with learning about these basic ideas:

THEORY

HYPOTHESIS

EXPLANATION

INDUCTION (and why it doesn't work)

LOGIC

LAW

FALSIFICATION

REALISM

UNIVERSALITY


What ARE the methodologies and epistemology of science? Is it empiricism or rationalism? How does falsification play into the role of science? How do we test theories? How do we create knowledge? How do we know when something is objective? What is science, and what is non-science? Discuss.