Laboratory life

摘要

An idealised picture of procedure in the natural sciences describes them as optimally objective and empirical, because such knowledge is based on rigorous testing of hypotheses by means of repeatable experiments, using quantitative techniques of investigation and confirmation. And, indeed, most scientific progress has been the result of these disciplined methods, even if the originating inspiration for some of the greatest scientific advances was a matter of individual serendipity, guesswork, dreams, or luck.In reaction to the dramatic progress of natural science, and of its life-transforming applications via technology, social scientists have gone, broadly speaking, in one of two directions. They have either tried to emulate the practices and methods of the natural sciences by using quantitative methodologies, laboratory experimentation, and concentration on purely objective and publicly repeatable phenomena; or they have argued that the "logic" of the social sciences is toto caelo different from thatin natural science, on the grounds that the phenomena it studies are subjective, evanescent, personal, and unique, and so not amenable to laboratory-style examination.