scientific inquiry
Systematic knowledge seeking
Scientific inquiry is the systematic process of investigating the natural world through observation, experimentation, and evidence-based reasoning.
It involves formulating questions, developing hypotheses, designing experiments to test them, and drawing conclusions from the results.
The term emphasizes methodology over mere curiosity—scientific inquiry follows established procedures that allow findings to be verified and replicated by others.
The students learned scientific inquiry by designing their own experiments.
- empiricismKnowledge through observation
- peer reviewExpert evaluation before publication
- peer reviewedEvaluated by fellow specialists
- observationAttentive watching or remark
- falsifiabilitySusceptibility to disproof
reproducibility · double blind · critical thinking · experimentation · trial and error · scientific method · replication · skepticism · questioning · hypothesis testing · curiosity · causality · data collection · analysis · burden of proof · hard evidence · research · objectivity
- researchstudy, research papers, researching, archive, peer review
- Philosophy & Scienceepistemology, empiricism, rationalism, scientific method, metaphysics
- enlightenmentVoltaire, Rousseau, Locke, Kant, Montesquieu
- bioethicsbioethics, medical ethics, genetic engineering, beneficence, non-maleficence
- RenaissanceLeonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Mona Lisa
- Founding Idealsfounding fathers, Declaration of Independence, natural rights, consent of governed, inalienable rights
scientific inquirydogma
Unchallengeable official beliefs
blind faith · superstition · pseudoscience · mysticism · magical thinking
scientific inquiryguesswork
Conclusions drawn without proof
wishful thinking · jumping to conclusions · speculation · conjecture · gut feeling
scientific inquirydogmatism
Unyielding adherence to doctrine
fundamentalism · closed-mindedness · orthodoxy · zealotry · groupthink