Are Scientists Skeptics Or Rationalists?

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Are scientists skeptics, rationalists, or empiricists? It is true that skeptics question ideas, theories, hypothesis, results, and the likes and such - making them search for a valid answer or reason for a certain or particular argument. Rationalists and empiricists on the other hand, although contradictory, have their own qualities that make them relevant towards science. A scientist, to be one, should be a little bit of a skeptic, rationalist, and empiricist. Scientists will need a skeptic's critical thinking and scrutinization of formulated theories, ideas, conclusions, experiences and etc. They will be the one to review the credibility of a scientific result or idea and if it did not meet the qualifications to be called as scientific evidence, …show more content…

It seems to be impossible for scientists to be both at the same time. But for me, they are. When rationalism and empiricism is united it can be represented as the scientific method. The scientific method emphasizes evidence therefore all hypotheses, theories, ideas, and the likes and such must be tested and observed for it to be proven as true. Engaging in scientific method means you will have to observe. Through observation, an idea has been formulated already but still needs more research about it. Only then, you can form a hypothesis regarding all the collected data. To test the hypothesis' credibility is through experiment. If the results did align with the hypothesis, only then will it be considered as a verified data. If it did not, another hypothesis will be formed then experimented. The cycle goes on until the hypothesis aligns with the results. Rationalism kicks in the first step of the scientific method all the way to the third which is the forming of a hypothesis. Empiricism might also start with observation but it is applied strongly during experiments because of the experience you get from …show more content…

Rationalists also help to make sense of the data and to make predictions about what new observations and experiments might show. And through experiments, it will show how successful a prediction is. Therefore theory feeds back on experiment, which in turn tells us how well our theories are doing. With this way of looking at things, one can conclude that both, rationalists and empiricists have qualities that are needed by scientists. Not forgetting about skeptics, they also have qualities that scientists need to adapt since they are the one who test the credibility of a data by questioning or scrutinizing it if there's no evidence to support it as explained earlier in the second