Scientific discovery can lead to many important applications, including new medicines, therapies, and technologies that improve our daily lives. The process of scientific discovery requires scientists to be courageous and take risks to try out new ideas, even when those experiments might fail. Scientists are also exposed to a range of ethical and moral issues as they strive to advance knowledge, including concerns about how to best use limited research funding and how to fairly share credit for discoveries.
Scientists seek to answer fundamental questions about the natural world through experimentation and observations. They are guided by principles and guidelines set out in scientific theories and methodologies, but they must be flexible enough to adapt as their understanding evolves.
The broadest definition of scientific discovery focuses on the adoption, articulation, and preliminary evaluation of ideas or hypotheses before rigorous testing. This approach reflects the belief that discovery is a process of generating novel expectations and exploring phenomena to see whether they support these expectations.
In contrast, some approaches to the philosophy of science focus on the idea that scientific discovery is a eureka moment, a mysterious intuitive leap of the human mind that cannot be explained or replicated. This view argues that there is an a priori ‘art’ of discovery that cannot be taught or learned, but that scientists can learn to recognize it by observing how certain scientists make discoveries (e.g., Einstein and Newton).
Other philosophical accounts of discovery are more concerned with the procedures involved in devising a hypothesis. These accounts include weak evaluation procedures that can be used to assess a hypothesis.
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