The scientific method: reflections from a practitioner

Preface

1. Science without philosophy?

2. Material world and objective reality

3. First principles and logic

4. Natural phenomena and the primacy of experiment

5. Observation and experimentation

6. The role of human faith in science

7. Approximate and limited description of natural phenomena

8. Hypothesis

9. Theory

10. Competing theories

11. Can one theory be "derived" from another?

12. Verifying or falsifying? And what?

13. Don't be a masochist!

14. "Consensus" in science? What is that?

15. Flow chart of the scientific method

16. The "what" and "why" questions

17. "Scientism": abusing the scientific method

18. Final thoughts.