You might already be well familiar with the scientific method. However, I will briefly go over it because it brings in a philosophy that you might see pop up repeatedly throughout your courses and any research you partake in.
First off, everyone begins with a question. This question at first can be hard to describe. A broad example might would be asking “Why?” Now of course, asking this gets us no where because in order to answer or solve the question we need to identify the problem at hand. This is where we will start to slow down, think a little harder, and start to form a specific question: or in other terms a scientific question. A good example of this might be the question “Is she [this woman right here] a witch?” from the Monty Python and the Holy Grail witch scene. After asking your question is when you begin to collect and read background information. Then you begin to make observations. For instance, in the scence the townsfolk stated that she “look like a witch” and that she allgedly turned a man into a newt, and they recalled hearing that witches burns because they are made wood. They then begin to want to test this explanation wanted to make a bridge out of her to see if she is a witch. A hypothesis is a “if … then …” statement that connects two variables to make an explanation of conculsion that is testable. In order for them to form a hypothesis they reworked their explanation to not be based if they could make a bridge out of her (because you can make a bridge out of stone), but to based on her weight because the realized that both ducks and wood float in water. Thus their hypothesis is now “If she ways the same as a duck then she is a witch”
After forming your hypothesis, is when you begin to test your hypothesis with an experiment. In the skit, the townsfolk decided to test their hypothesis by putting her and a duck on two scales. The next step would be to collect data or information related to the experiment. For example, the townsfolk gain the information that she indeed weighed the same as the duck. Once you are done collecting data, you draw a conclusion to your hypothesis. For example, the townsfolk determined that she was a witch.
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