Why are scientific conclusions never considered final

Predictability in a scientific theory implies that the theory should enable us to make predictions about future events. The precision of these predictions is a measure of the strength of the theory.

Falsifiability refers to whether a hypothesis can disproved. For a hypothesis to be falsifiable, it must be logically possible to make an observation or do a physical experiment that would show that there is no support for the hypothesis. Even when a hypothesis cannot be shown to be false, that does not necessarily mean it is not valid. Future testing may disprove the hypothesis. This does not mean that a hypothesis has to be shown to be false, just that it can be tested.

To determine whether a hypothesis is supported or not supported, psychological researchers must conduct hypothesis testing using statistics. Hypothesis testing is a type of statistics that determines the probability of a hypothesis being true or false. Fairness implies that all data must be considered when evaluating a hypothesis. A researcher cannot pick and choose what data to keep and what to discard or focus specifically on data that support or do not support a particular hypothesis. All data must be accounted for, even if they invalidate the hypothesis.

If you walked out of your home and discovered a very aggressive snake waiting on your doorstep, your heart would begin to race and your stomach churn. According to the James-Lange theory, these physiological changes would result in your feeling of fear. A hypothesis that could be derived from this theory might be that a person who is unaware of the physiological arousal that the sight of the snake elicits will not feel fear.

Remember that a good scientific hypothesis is falsifiable, or capable of being shown to be incorrect. Recall from the introductory module that Sigmund Freud had lots of interesting ideas to explain various human behaviors Figure 3.

Figure 4. In broader strokes, his views set the stage for much of psychological thinking today, such as the unconscious nature of the majority of psychological processes. In contrast, the James-Lange theory does generate falsifiable hypotheses, such as the one described above.

Some individuals who suffer significant injuries to their spinal columns are unable to feel the bodily changes that often accompany emotional experiences. Therefore, we could test the hypothesis by determining how emotional experiences differ between individuals who have the ability to detect these changes in their physiological arousal and those who do not.

Want to participate in a study? Visit this Psychological Research on the Net website and click on a link that sounds interesting to you in order to participate in online research. The use of the scientific method is one of the main features that separates modern psychology from earlier philosophical inquiries about the mind. Many of the concepts that psychologists are interested in—such as aspects of the human mind, behavior, and emotions—are subjective and cannot be directly measured.

Psychologists often rely instead on behavioral observations and self-reported data, which are considered by some to be illegitimate or lacking in methodological rigor.

Applying the scientific method to psychology, therefore, helps to standardize the approach to understanding its very different types of information. The scientific method allows psychological data to be replicated and confirmed in many instances, under different circumstances, and by a variety of researchers.

Through replication of experiments, new generations of psychologists can reduce errors and broaden the applicability of theories. It also allows theories to be tested and validated instead of simply being conjectures that could never be verified or falsified. Adding unnecessary detail can distract from the main findings. Include new arguments or evidence not previously discussed.

Necessary information and evidence should be introduced in the main body of the paper. Shy away from speaking on limitations or negative results. Including limitations and negative results will give readers a complete understanding of the presented research. Potential limitations include sources of potential bias, threats to internal or external validity, barriers to implementing an intervention and other issues inherent to the study design.

Overstate the importance of your findings. Making grand statements about how a study will fully resolve large questions can lead readers to doubt the success of the research. Therefore, the cervical range of motion of extinct vertebrates should follow the same criteria until evidence suggests otherwise.

If the relative flexibility of the primate larynx is robust to future analyses with more clades, it would indicate an increased capacity to explore trait space in our lineage, which may in turn explain why primates have developed such diverse and complex uses of the vocal organ. Wheaton, : Finally, Bragg did not believe in his theory.

In , Bragg had been corresponding with Arnold Sommerfeld, a leading German physicist. While Bragg had continued to publicly defend his particle theory, in private, Bragg was more candid about how he considered his theory:. I am very far from being averse to a reconcilement of a corpuscular and a wave theory: I think that some day it must come… I have suggested the neutral pair form myself: but I do not wish to press this unduly or be dogmatic about it.

It seems to me to be the best model to be devised at present, and I have no right to claim more. Bragg had to defend the possibility of an unknown positive particle as well as the neutral pair itself. The neutral pair theory was difficult to defend in face of mounting evidence against material theories, which is why Bragg was so circumspect about his doxastic state in his private letters.

Bragg, after all, was awarded the Nobel Prize in for his work on X-ray crystallography, a new field born out of his early work on the nature of X-rays.

Let us summarise, then, what this historical episode demonstrates. In a series of scientific public avowals Bragg defended a theory, the neutral material particle hypothesis.

His conduct over the course of this research was felt to be sufficiently meritorious that it did not interfere with him winning the highest honour a scientist may achieve—the false theory spurred valuable research into the diffraction patterns of X-rays.

Throughout this period, however, many of the avowals he made were false; by the time the Nobel was awarded this was certainly known to the physics community. As Bragg himself admits the full weight of evidence was not clearly on his side, and for this reason he was throughout privately quite circumspect about the extent to which he even believed his claims about the neutral pair.

His public avowals, therefore, were neither true, nor justified by the total evidence available, nor believed to be either true or justified by Bragg himself. In the coming sections we shall argue that far from being unusual or evidence of some epistemic defect, this is a proper state for scientific public avowals.

The proper social epistemic functioning of science requires that public avowals in science fail to satisfy the norms we surveyed at the beginning. We take it to be uncontroversial that if there will be sustained and organised inquiry, any collective inquiry of the sort that science in fact is, there must be successful communication of the latest results and ideas about them.

We will assume that the norms governing utterances communicating those results and ideas must reflect and endorse this state of affairs. Any norm for making avowals which rendered it impermissible to put forward just those claims which constitute necessary features of collective inquiry would be misaligned with the purpose of the activity it is supposed to govern.

The scientific community has developed norms, both explicit and implicit, which govern utterances that are appropriate for communicating scientific findings to other scientists. We shall argue that these do not look like any of the purported norms of assertion, and for good reason. First, note the role of the division of cognitive labour. It is well recognised in philosophy of science that such a division is an important strategy for collective inquiry Kitcher, ; Strevens, Scientists invest time and resources on different approaches to a research domain.

This division of cognitive labor means that during periods of active inquiry, scientists will often be publishing discoveries which are seemingly in conflict with each other. Bragg investigated the particle-wave problem using, what we call today, hard X-rays, which are higher in energy. This is because Bragg and Barkla used slightly different techniques for producing X-rays, due to the limited availability of radioactive source materials.

They also used different experimental techniques to look at X-ray behavior see Wheaton, This led them to come to radically different conclusions about the nature of X-rays. Barkla, on the other hand, observed his soft X-rays to behave more consistently like waves. At most one of these models of X-rays could have been correct as it turned out neither are correct , yet both scientists had to publicise their work if scientific progress were to be made.

Public avowals which break factive norms are thus epistemically beneficial and ought to be encouraged. Without them we would have never found out eventually that how X-rays are produced changes the energy of the X-rays—this was a fact we only discovered because Bragg and Barkla came to different results due to how they were generating X-rays in their labs. Moving beyond the necessity of the division of labour, the case study can be placed in the context of a broader historical argument.

Frequent false public avowals are a necessary part of scientific progress, especially in areas of active inquiry. While scientific realists have argued that the history of science is also full of epistemic successes for example, see Fahrbach, , , it is nevertheless the case that individual contributions to science in areas of active inquiry are prone to error and are continuously replaced by new errors.

These historical arguments can be supplemented with theoretical arguments. All our inquiry inevitably takes place in a situation of scarce resources and competing demands on our attention. Where this is the case, we have theoretical reason to believe that scientists will not gather as much data as a disinterested epistemic planner would have them gather Heesen, , Further, some of our inquiry takes place in contexts where there are weak signals, sparse data, and considerable difficulty in running replications.

When this is so, limitations to what is possible through statistical inference give us reason to suppose that most of our published findings will be false Ioannidis, ; Romero, These facts together suggest we have not found a better way of communicating findings than one in which there are frequent false avowals. If we agree with versions of the pessimistic meta-induction wherein new scientific theories tend to demonstrate pervasive reference failure in their previous iterations, it means that almost all scientific public avowals turn out to be false.

What does the necessity of dividing labour, and the pessimistic conclusions about present and past science, tell us about our norms for scientific public avowals? We think they quickly rule out factive norms. For factive norms would judge inappropriate a great part of those avowals that are necessary for the progress of any collective inquiry which must divide labour and proceed by correcting errors.

It is not just that we in fact often will say false things in the course of inquiry, but rather that inquiry could not proceed in a way that was even remotely successful if we did not do so. Given the ubiquity and necessity of such things to collective inquiry this renders factive norms simply inappropriate as a means of deciding what conclusions ought to be put forward from individual contributions to the wider project.

The norms of inquiry should not rule out necessary parts of the process. Avoiding requiring adherence to factive norms in the midst of inquiry thus looks even more attractive when one considers that it may not even be the desired end state.

With one more assumption we think the arguments just reviewed also rule out justification norms as appropriate for governing individual contributions to collective inquiry. Our additional assumption is that whatever notion of justification is at play here it meets the total evidence requirement Good, Our total evidence includes the information just provided about what kind of process science is. Not just how generally reliable our inquiry is, but also how reliable it is for hard problems in particular, and how reliable we are ourselves as individual or communal epistemic agents.

For any one paper, the reasons one could produce in favour of its central claim could well be outweighed by these competing second-order considerations. In the X-ray case, Bragg knew that the total evidence, on balance, did not support his corpuscular theory, but he nonetheless published and defended it publicly. This was not condemned by his contemporaries, rather they took his theory seriously despite everyone being aware that there exists compelling research which did not support it.

So the surveyed justification norms of assertion cannot govern scientific avowals if they are to foster and permit publishing surprising findings or results, and we believe would not appropriately do so for any collective inquiry into a difficult or obscure matter. Finally, one might think that none the less the belief norms may apply to public avowals.

For all that has just been said, scientists may believe their claims to be true or justified, as long as scientists are ignorant of this history or these theoretical results.

Or, perhaps, as long as they retain their faith in their own particular claims even while being aware that in general studies like theirs are not reliable.

So long as scientists can maintain belief in themselves, we could require they only avow when they believe all they have said. We think such a retreat to mere belief or second order belief would be a mistake. For one thing, there is a large and persuasive literature in the philosophy of science detailing situations wherein inquiry may proceed well without scientists believing their claims e.

But over and above this we do not think that bad faith can be required of people. Quite generally we do not think a good social system can require participants to be ignorant as to the nature of their activities and their history, or require that they reason irrationally upon being informed about these things.

False ideology or absurd arrogance should not be a prerequisite for inquiry. In this context it means that we cannot require as a condition of successful public avowal in science that scientists may not learn the various historical or theoretical facts that would undermine their faith in their assertions.

Scientists do not need to believe that they are epistemically special in order to successfully participate in science. If one agrees that bad faith cannot be mandatory then one can move from the above arguments to a rejection of both the justification norms and the belief norms. Scientists may well know of themselves that they are engaged in an activity which is not reliable for the kind of results they report.

They thus may well not think their investigations are sufficient reason to believe their conclusions, or would suffice for justification all things considered. Their total evidence inclusive of second order evidence could not justify this, and they form their credences appropriately.

Hence they may not believe their results at all, or believe them to be justified, and yet still properly avow. We ought not rule out as inapt these avowals of scientists who take the full measure of their epistemic situation. Hence building on the social epistemology of dividing cognitive labour, the pessimistic meta-induction and related theoretical results, we have been able to generalise our case study.

This ruled out the factive, justification, and belief norms as the proper means of deciding what sort of conclusions are appropriately put forward as individual contributions to collective inquiry. In some sense, of course, one could avoid this by just making weaker claims.

The weaker claim might well be true, or at least justified even in light of total evidence, and perhaps ought to be believed in any case. Certainly it is the case that many scientific result claims are made in a hedged way in something like this fashion.

Of course, at present we do not think that scientists always obey this norm of making only such weaker statements. However, if one was a strong advocate of one of the norms surveyed one could insist that strictly speaking only such weaker avowals would be proper, and fault those scientists who do not live up to this.

We note this possibility simply to note that it is a path we shall not explore here. We are concerned here with what should be expected of individual contributions to a broader inquiry, not really the exact forms they take.

We are only making an analogy to the norms of assertion literature, not trying to weigh in on speech act theory. In the context of scientific research, we cannot only concern ourselves with events in a particular laboratory, or evidential relationships between particular data sets and a proposition. We also must put forward candidates for scientific communal uptake and potential targets for future inquiry. This goes all the more when one considers, as we have largely set aside, that one wishes ultimately to make use of scientific claims as the basis of public policy, where their external validity is what is of paramount importance c.

We do not doubt that it would be possible to reform scientific communication behaviour such that one sticks to scientific public avowals that are proper according to one of the surveyed norms by insisting on appropriate hedging. But our concern is not really with the precise linguistic form such claims would take so much as the social uptake amongst scientists.

However results are conveyed, scientists must decide what claims are worthy of further tests Friedman, ; Thorstad, Our point is that it would be inappropriate for scientists to insist that in the absence of fraud or mistake or misfortune these pursuit worthy claims must be true, or justified, or believed to be as much by their proponents.

Further, we shall briefly outline a proposal for an actual norm that could appropriately govern, and is perhaps governing, scientific avowals in the next section, based on an analysis of the social epistemology of science. The upshot of the above is that scientific public avowals can, and in some cases ought, be allowed to be proper even when they are false, not justified in light of our total evidence, and neither believed to be true nor justified. While we are most concerned to show that this is normatively appropriate, we think this both matches the actual practice and standards of science and facilitates the enterprise of collective inquiry perpetuating itself successfully.

The rejected norms were picked as the basis of our inquiry since they had been found plausible or defensible as norms for assertion, which is at least a somewhat related activity of putting forward scientific public avowals. So why this discrepancy? In short, we think this is because the social enterprise of inquiry requires that we allow people to be more lax in certain contexts than we normally require of individuals offering testimony, and through a long process of cultural evolution the scientific community developed norms of avowal to accommodate that fact.

It may seem surprising that the norms in science are less, rather than more, strict than everyday life. Intuitively science might seem to be a place where we operate under especially strict epistemic standards.

And in a sense this is true, so long as one understands the "we" in a genuinely plural sense. That is to say, it is the group that must achieve high standards of rigour, and how individuals contribute to that may be somewhat indirect. For the group to achieve this goal we may well need the individuals who make up the group to be emboldened to take creative leaps and offer bold conjectures on matters that are complex, abstruse, and generally difficult to gain any epistemic purchase on.

In this way our study of the somewhat niche topic of norms for avowals connects up with classic themes in the philosophy of science e.

Feyerabend, ; Popper, , wherein it is emphasised that for science as a whole to progress individual scientists may operate in a somewhat gung-ho or ad-hoc manner. We think that what is required here is some form of contextualist epistemic norm see DeRose, for a factive version of this purported norm. Context, provided by the history and present consensus in a field, specifies some amount of the previous literature one must survey to check for coherence, and which methodological procedures one must carry out to reach a conclusion that is worth reporting to others.

Public avowals are or should be held to specific subfield-specific norms thus generated—these norms for specifying the requisite literature to survey and adopting methods whose results are worth reporting on are implicitly taught to young scientists as part of their graduate and postdoctoral training.

Such a norm captures the sense in which researchers are held to demanding standards while remaining consistent with the various arguments we have offered showing that apt scientific public avowals need be neither true, known, believed, justified, reasonable to be believed, nor believed to be any such.

We note that in the case of philosophy people have also argued that it is permissible to put forward claims even which one does not believe and are not justified Barnett, ; Goldberg, ; Plakias, Summarizing your thoughts and conveying the larger significance of your study.

The conclusion is an opportunity to succinctly re-emphasize the "So What? Identifying how a gap in the literature has been addressed. The conclusion can be where you describe how a previously identified gap in the literature [described in your literature review section] has been filled by your research.

Demonstrating the importance of your ideas. Don't be shy. The conclusion offers you the opportunity to elaborate on the impact and significance of your findings.

This is particularly important if your study approached examining the research problem from an unusual or innovative perspective. Introducing possible new or expanded ways of thinking about the research problem. This does not refer to introducing new information [which should be avoided], but to offer new insight and creative approaches for framing or contextualizing the research problem based on the results of your study.

Structure and Writing Style I. General Rules The function of your paper's conclusion is to restate the main argument. When writing the conclusion to your paper, follow these general rules: Present your conclusions in clear, simple language. Re-state the purpose of your study, then describe how your findings differ or support those of other studies and why [i.

Do not simply reiterate your findings or the discussion of your results. Provide a synthesis of arguments presented in the paper to show how these converge to address the research problem and the overall objectives of your study. Indicate opportunities for future research if you haven't already done so in the discussion section of your paper. Highlighting the need for further research provides the reader with evidence that you have an in-depth awareness of the research problem and that further investigations should take place.

Consider the following points to help ensure your conclusion is presented well: If the argument or purpose of your paper is complex, you may need to summarize the argument for your reader.

If, prior to your conclusion, you have not yet explained the significance of your findings or if you are proceeding inductively, use the end of your paper to describe your main points and explain their significance. Move from a detailed to a general level of consideration that returns the topic to the context provided by the introduction or within a new context that emerges from the data.

Developing a Compelling Conclusion Although an effective conclusion needs to be clear and succinct, it does not need to be written passively or lack a compelling narrative. Strategies to help you move beyond merely summarizing the key points of your research paper may include any of the following strategies: If your essay deals with a critical, contemporary problem, warn readers of the possible consequences of not attending to the problem proactively.

Recommend a specific course or courses of action that, if adopted, could address a specific problem in practice or in the development of new knowledge.

Cite a relevant quotation or expert opinion already noted in your paper in order to lend authority and support to the conclusion s you have reached [a good place to look is research from your literature review]. Explain the consequences of your research in a way that elicits action or demonstrates urgency in seeking change.

Restate a key statistic, fact, or visual image to emphasize the most important finding of your paper. If your discipline encourages personal reflection, illustrate your concluding point by drawing from your own life experiences.

Return to an anecdote, an example, or a quotation that you presented in your introduction, but add further insight derived from the findings of your study; use your interpretation of results to recast it in new or important ways.