ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the overall pattern of scientific research—the scientific method—and at its aim. The scientific approach is made up of the scientific method and of the goal of science. Science is not just a prolongation or even a mere refinement of ordinary knowledge in the way that the microscope extends the reach of unaided vision. Ordinary knowledge can develop in any of the following three directions: Technical knowledge, Protoscience and Pseudoscience. Every branch of science is characterized by an open set of problems which it approaches with a set of tactics or techniques. Logic is concerned with the structure of both factual and formal ideas. When scientific techniques are applied to data gathering without finding general patterns, embryonic science—protoscience—is produced. Science tends to build conceptual mappings of the patterns of facts—i.e., factual theories. Science yields problematic but improvable conceptual reconstructions of reality.
