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<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7473610" data-attributes="member: 6683613">That's the grade-school presentation of the scientific method. In real sciences of many varieties, &quot;experiments&quot; have to take the form of making further careful observations of the world and assessing whether they conform to a prediction made by the hypothesis. For example, controlled and repeated experiments are not usually possible in astronomy: if we want to test, say, the prediction made by general relativity about gravitational lensing, we have to wait until a solar eclipse and then measure the apparent positions of the stars around it. Make no mistake: these &quot;natural experiments&quot; are not as good as controlled experiments in a laboratory. There is greater risk of the result being a consequence of an uncontrolled variable, and as far as repeatability goes we're at nature's mercy. We have to be more careful, and cannot be as certain. But that does not mean that no science can come of it. It seems absurd to declare that the Eddington-Dyson observation of the 1919 eclipse, one of the most dramatic and famous experimental confirmations of a hypothesis in the history of science, was &quot;not scientific&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 7473610, member: 6683613"] That's the grade-school presentation of the scientific method. In real sciences of many varieties, "experiments" have to take the form of making further careful observations of the world and assessing whether they conform to a prediction made by the hypothesis. For example, controlled and repeated experiments are not usually possible in astronomy: if we want to test, say, the prediction made by general relativity about gravitational lensing, we have to wait until a solar eclipse and then measure the apparent positions of the stars around it. Make no mistake: these "natural experiments" are [I]not as good[/I] as controlled experiments in a laboratory. There is greater risk of the result being a consequence of an uncontrolled variable, and as far as repeatability goes we're at nature's mercy. We have to be more careful, and cannot be as certain. But that does not mean that no science can come of it. It seems absurd to declare that the Eddington-Dyson observation of the 1919 eclipse, one of the most dramatic and famous experimental confirmations of a hypothesis in the history of science, was "not scientific". [/QUOTE]

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