Abstract
At one time, a friend of mine gave me a book to inform me as to the nature of science. My immediate response was that I did not need such a book; at that stage I was already tenured, promoted to Associate Professor with a good track record in publishing, and the promise of many publications to come. Clearly, I thought, I know what science is about.
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Notes
- 1.
The book, by the way, is Alan Chalmer’s brilliant essay “What is this thing called science?” (3rd edition, University of Queensland Press, 1999).
- 2.
I should point out here that this is an overly simplistic account of the relationship between the truly exact sciences (mathematics) and their applications in natural sciences such as physics. But I did promise not to delve into tangential discourses.
- 3.
We should note here that Galileo initially endured significant resistance against his findings, because his measurement was not trusted as a scientific instrument. It took decades of replication (another scientific principle), until his findings were confirmed to the extent that they were trusted as valid observational evidence.
- 4.
Refining measurements is still very much prevalent to date. To note just one example: the improvements in neuroscientific measurement methods such as fMRI scanners provide much more precise measurement of brain activities than any other measurement instrument used in cognitive psychology to date.
- 5.
Note again that these statements do not qualify these research inquiries but are merely used to distinguish different strands of research.
References
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Chalmers, A.F.: What is this thing called science? 3rd edn. Hackett, Indianapolis (1999)
Creswell, J.W.: Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, 3rd edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks (2009)
Cronbach, L.J., Meehl, P.E.: Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychol. Bull. 52, 281–302 (1955)
Feyerabend, P.: Against method, 3rd edn. Verso, New York (1993)
Popper, K.R.: The logic of scientific discovery. Basic Books, New York (1959)
Reynolds, P.D.: A primer in theory construction. Allyn and Bacon, Needham Heights (1971)
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Recker, J. (2012). Information Systems Research as a Science. In: Scientific Research in Information Systems. Progress in IS. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30048-6_2
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