After so many posts recently written by people trying to defend Young Earth
Creationism, I thought I'd just write a brief post explaining scientific
method.

This will hopefully shed some light on the idea for those who have not studied
science since high school, and will certainly highlight why creation 'science'
is not a science at all.

Scientific method as described in the Merriam-Webster dictionary online;

"Principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of
 knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a
 problem, the collection of data through observation and
 experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses."
      
So when you want to propose a scientific theory, what you do is the
following;

(1) Identify the area to be investigated, e.g. "How old is the Earth?"
(2) Create a hypothesis, e.g. "The Earth is young" or "The Earth is old".
 - It is good to have as many possible competing theories as you can - that
way you are most likely to find the best one.  If possible, the list should be
exhaustive, i.e. covering all possible explanations.
(3) Examine the predictions of each of these theories.  e.g. "If the Earth is
young then nothing in it can be old."
(4) Test these predictions using experimental results. e.g. "Can we find
anything old?"
(5) Continue collecting experimental results, checking your experimental
methods, analysing the results and making statistical deductions.
(6) Once you have analysed the errors inherent in all of your measurement
methods, then it will suddenly become clear which hypotheses still predict the
results to within a reasonable degree of confidence, and which don't.  Never
totally neglect a theory, but you can safely prune away those which completely
fail to match the data, and only return to them if more data surface at a
later date.
(7) Decide which model(s) is(are) most likely based on the data.
(8) NOW, and only now, do you publish your results, including all their
uncertainties.
(9) The scientific community at large reads your work carefully, tries to find
any flaws in it, and analyses it in detail.
(10) If your work survives then it becomes accepted theory.  If not then
return to step (1), (2) or (5).

An example of scientific method in practice;

"I believe that the average age of staff in my department is approximately
40 years, to within 10 years."
Alternative hypotheses;
"The average age is significantly lower than this. (<30 years)."
"The average age is significantly higher than this. (>50 years)."
(These cover all the possible eventualities.)
Methods;
"I will take a survey of a representative sample of people in my department, and
calculate their average age.  I will do everything possible to avoid experimental
bias, e.g. I will not just ask people in the gardens playing frisbee."
Results; "I sampled 10 people. Average age seems to be about 45 with a standard
error of 7 years."
Conclusions;
"This probably rules out a significantly younger age at a 2 sigma level.  It
does not rule out an older age, or the age of 40."
Further study;
"I will sample more people at my department, preferably all of them."
Results;
"I sampled 80 people.  Average age is 43 with an error of 2 years."
Final Conclusion; "I conclude that the most likely explanation is that the
original hypothesis is correct, and that people in my department are on
average around 40 years old, to within 10 years.  I rule out an average age
of over 50 years by 3.5 sigma, and an age of less than 30 years by 6.5
sigma.  Therefore I conclude that these are wrong.  If I wanted to do so, I
could investigate the statistical distribution of ages, and analyse the
confidence with which I can conclude these results."


An example of an unscientific approach;

"I believe the Earth is 6000 years old"
Alternative Hypotheses;
"The Earth was formed by a large blancmange from the planet Skyron in the
Galaxy of Andromeda."
(Note how they are not exhaustive hypotheses)
Methods;
"75 years ago, a known lunatic claimed that he had been visited by blancmanges
who wanted him to make kilts for them.  We know that blancmanges can't wear
kilts, so clearly the original theory is false.  The alternative theory makes
seven thousand other claims, which we cannot disprove."
(Make no claims, ignore the vast body of evidence, and pick out only those
people who support your claim.)
Results;
"Someone claiming to support a possible alternative hypothesis was wrong once,
therefore we are correct."
Conclusions;
"We conclude that the Earth is 6000 years old, because it's obvious."
Further Study;
"Wait for the other guys to come up with something, and then attack it."
Final Conclusion;
"I was correct."


Another example;

"The eye is too complex to have evolved."
Alternative Hypotheses;
"The eye is not too complex to have evolved"
Methods;
"Intuition."
Results;
"I mean, it's obvious, right?"
Conclusions;
"The eye is too complex to have evolved"
Further Study;
"We plan to read more work written by people who agree with us."
Final Conclusions;
"We were right."


I hope I've helped some of you who were struggling with this concept finally
to understand the idea.