Raw exploration in scientific method

[JustinThyme]

I'm all for the scientific method. But something has always perplexed me: how does raw exploration fit into the canonical scientific method? Like when you (or nobody) has enough information about a situation to even make a valid hypothesis to test.

Let's take a mountain that nobody has explored the far side, and I need to write my PhD dissertation on what I find over there. I could invent some bogus hypothesis ("I think the far side is populated by purple bunny rabbits"), at which point I test my hypothesis (by exploring), and then report my results ("No purple bunny rabbits, but I did find a new race of platypus").

Is this really necessary? Or is there some format of official scientific publication where I can just say, "We went into the unknown and here's what we found in the process"?

[NobbyNobbs]

Well, you could compare it to whatever past experience you do have that is applicable.

"Based on previous expeditions to other mountainsides, we predict that it is quite likely there is a race of purple bunnies on the other side of this one too."

[rudar]

I think the official name for the format of that particular one would be ``descriptive natural history.'' Certainly there is a time and a place for publishing purely descriptive studies. A real-world case I just heard about recently was a complete catalogueing of invasive marine species in Puget sound. No real hypothesis there (unless you really want to force things, you could call ``there are no invasive exotics in Puget Sound'' a hypothesis and then proceed to test it, but you're quite right that in all honesty, it was a simple descriptive study of ``what's out there'', rather than a test of a hypothesis of ``What would happen if I do this?''

[Jon the Geek]

The first step of the scientific method is observation. As rudar mentioned, there's plenty of observation that takes place in nature before any gets to a testable hypothesis.

[Jeff Corey]

There are many experiments that started with no specific hypothesis but just were designed to see what effect, if any, a particular independent variable had.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm all for the scientific method. But something has always perplexed me: how does raw exploration fit into the canonical scientific method? Like when you (or nobody) has enough information about a situation to even make a valid hypothesis to test.
It's called data collection. There is a canonical example of a science that is still in the data collection phase: parapsychology.

~~ Paul

[Darat]

It's called data collection. There is a canonical example of a science that is still in the data collection phase: parapsychology.

~~ Paul

Hey it's only had 200 years of looking... give it a chance!;)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I am nothing if not patient.

~~ Paul

[Mr. Skinny]

I'm all for the scientific method. But something has always perplexed me: how does raw exploration fit into the canonical scientific method? Like when you (or nobody) has enough information about a situation to even make a valid hypothesis to test.
Regardless of the scientific method, it's money that usually rules what gets funded for research.

If nobody has enough information about a situation to make a valid hypothesis, then you are unlikely to get funded. The money will go toward projects that look promising, and have a valid hypothesis to test.

It seems to be a risk/benefit situation. I suppose you could get funded for a really "out there" idea, but the potential payoff would have to be huge.

[Molinaro]

In the end, your question gets cut in the editing. It's not about why you went over the mountain. All science will look back on from your discoveries are the tautologies that build on prior knowlegde. All the personal stuff gets edited out, to give us our reproducable results.

So it doesn't realy matter. Just write a good accurate one after instead :)

[athon]

Observation, association and speculation are the 'hidden' steps prior to hypothesis making. They aren't explicit because they happen all the time without you needing to extend yourself into actively accomplishing it.

For your 'purple bunny rabbit' hypothesis...

You see a mountain. 'Observation' causes you to associate what you sense with a range of prior experiences. You've seen other mountains, or at least other hills, or maybe even just other bits of land which has topology presently obscured, or just learned about these things from others who have experienced them. From any prior observation, you associate some factors, ranging from maybe the wildlife present to the temperature to the precipitation. All of these things contribute to speculation - pure daydreaming informed by what you see now and what you have sensed in the past.

SOMETHING inspires the thought 'maybe there are purple bunny rabbits on the other side', based on what you've seen before. Now, for the hypothesis to really be worthy of exploring, you need to justify it in some small way. The better the speculation can be justified, the more worthy the hypothesis is to being evaluating (worth being 'how likely is my hypothesis going to have merit in being demonstrated true).

This then follows into the rest of the scientific method.

Athon

[epepke]

I'm all for the scientific method. But something has always perplexed me: how does raw exploration fit into the canonical scientific method? Like when you (or nobody) has enough information about a situation to even make a valid hypothesis to test.

Let's take a mountain that nobody has explored the far side, and I need to write my PhD dissertation on what I find over there. I could invent some bogus hypothesis ("I think the far side is populated by purple bunny rabbits"), at which point I test my hypothesis (by exploring), and then report my results ("No purple bunny rabbits, but I did find a new race of platypus").

Is this really necessary? Or is there some format of official scientific publication where I can just say, "We went into the unknown and here's what we found in the process"?

Plenty of that in biology and zoology.

Kinda hard to do that with a research grant, though.

So what happens is that you get the research grant for something, and then you spend as much time as possible dicking around.