ABSTRACT
When people think of natural scientists doing research, they tend to think of them in a laboratory, probably doing an experiment. The experiment is the classic research method of the natural scientist, and has produced many of its most valuable results, both in pure and in applied science. This is because the experiment is most suited to the assumptions that natural scientists have traditionally made about what they are studying. They assume that the natural world has an independent existence of its own, which is as it is regardless of those who are studying it, and which is governed by laws which can be discovered by the research scientist if only the right methods can be developed. The knowledge that is discovered using these methods is regarded as objective and factual, i.e. it is correct for all times and all places, and is not going to be different according to who discovers it. Once that knowledge is gained, it can be used to explain events in the natural world. to make predictions about what will happen in the natural world, and thus to control that world and make it behave in ways that are, at least in theory, to the advantage of the controllers. We will pursue this debate further in chapter 6 of this book, and find that this picture of natural science has been modified recently. For the moment, however, we will accept these assumptions.
