Principles of Scientific Thinking and Examples

Scientific thinking skills in people’s behavior

Psychology is not a science. It is the scientific study which relates the behavior, brain and mind. It is based on the collecting data from evidences, ingests them, analyses them, then conclude that. Scientific thinking skill is all about the study which tells about the learning and thinking strategy of people. That how they took any kind of idea from their general environment and relate to their behavior. Most of the students underestimate the subject science. For them science means learning of chemistry, biology, and physics in class room. Rather it is wide discipline based on evidences, researches, data collection and acceptable result. A good scientific theory accounts for the people behavior based on evidence, gathering information that helps in prediction. These theories raise the level of an intellectual and behavior psychology. Social learning theory is a behavioral theory. Cognitive theory is used by people related to corporate world. They used no. of skills according to their mental capacity and behavior. People use skills like, knowledge, negotiation and application, many more skills like analysis, synthesis and evaluation for their improvement in workplace. Scientific theory facilitates a framework from the inquiry to conclusion.

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Principles Of Scientific Thinking Skill:-

Principle # 1. Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

It is a self-explanatory statement. If someone put some extraordinary claims then he has to show some evidences in support to his claim. That person’s belief has to filter through many cross checks, explanations, many questions etc. he has to keep this in mind that theory must be supported by extraordinary evidences only then he able to justify his theory. These principles direct relate the cognitive and behavioral concept. You have to develop this ability to fight with your problems. People surrounds you very fast for this claim so with positive behave you can able to deal with them. For example OPERA neutrino experiment has to undergo through many questions and verifications. In this experiment many scientist put their efforts to that they capable to send a beam of particles at 400 miles faster than the speed of light. This experiment was not easily digested by other people. Because for them because the velocity of light is ultimate standard of speed. Antonio Ereditato, a spokesman for Opera made clear to everyone’s mind that it will continuously work until unless its devices do not show any error. And the team continuously cross checks its working capacity. After many checking and verifications OPERA got green signal and it is still continue its working. This means to show that there is something which is even faster than light lots of efforts need to justify this claim. This truly justified this principle that extraordinary claim require extraordinary evidences.

Principle # 2. Falsifiability

It is the one of the important theory related to thinking skill. This principle explains that theories must be falsified. If a theory has to be meaningful it must be disapproved. The gathered data and observations must prove wrong. It is related to general behavior once the people think a statement they continue thinking on that topic. This is fictitious and disapproved. For example people think that to increase the “sleep assisted learning” people have to play an audio recording of a book for several nights while sleeping, and they will learn everything in the book without any conscious effort. Companies they try to sleep more and more with this they think that they are reducing their weight, it helps to enhance their memory power, skin become more glows. All this happen with this learning pattern. For this they purchase CDs and waste lots of money. Later it was proved there is no this kind of learning exists. An ‘electroencephalogram’ of those peoples were studied by the doctors. They did not find any change in brain. So, this information was discarded completely that people cannot improve their learning skill by listening records overnight.

Principle # 3. Occam’s razor

According to this theory if we avoided with two compatible statements then we prefer the simple one. Because it’s nature’s rule select an easy way. It belongs to behavior theory that human beings favor to select an easy way. For example if a person work in an organization struck with problem and he has two compatible ideas then he choose the simple idea to resolve his problem. It is the human being’s psychology how to deal with his problem in an easy way? This can be relate with cognitive theory that a person study his problem, analyses that and try for easy solution that he can.

Principle # 4. Replicability

Replicability means repetition this one thing is tested so many time to get the same result. It is a study which allows producing same results for no. of time. But this theory has confined area. For example vaccine for polio virus gives same result when it injected in animals for experiment. Then it launch in market. It is the thinking skill and team efforts of doctors that they able to cure the disease. But this theory is not applicable when a person doing meditation and he is able to solve 60 IQ. Questions While the other person doing the same meditation but would not be able to solve the questions. Because intellectual power increased with the inner concentration and thinking power. The person which cognitively sounds can raise himself at highest level.

Principle # 5. Ruling out Rival Hypotheses

This principle means “evaluating the claim”. While explaining the claim we have to notice that we should have other possible explanation for the same claim. This principle correlates to social learning. And the social learning derives from behavioral learning. For example in class rooms former theories for learning were boring and there were few learning styles which can be applicable during teaching. Class is comprised of many kinds of learners such as analytical learner, holistic learners and other kind of learners. Now recent studies do not support the classical method of teaching. In this teachers got spatial style to educate the learners in different ways by using different kinds of learning styles.

ï‚· Visual learning style

ï‚· Audio learning style

ï‚· Kinesthetic learning style

Based on the above explanation, we can say learner got opportunity to develop learning behavior. By developing this ability learner may able to increase his cognitive capability.

Principle # 6. Correlation vs. Causation

This principle means that two ideas cannot correlates with each other and they cannot be the main cause of each other For example the fat people often used to tell that they eat more. Whereas we know that obesity is not related to mental tension. . This kind of myth deepens in their mind and this is related to their behavioral psychology. We know that both factors are not correlating with each other and not the causal of each other.

Examples Related To Scientific Thinking.

ï‚· Operant is defined as behavior that produces effects. Operant conditioning based upon work. B.F Skinner who proposed that people emit response either on rewarded or not emits response on getting punishment. For example a person wants to leave his job because he is not getting proper incentives from that job and he is not satisfied with his job. In other company he is expecting his mental growth, thinking that he will get more incentives. Now for getting the reward he will develop cognitive skill and put more efforts in work. Operant conditioning is the powerful tool for managing people in organization.

ï‚· Cognitive learning is learning achieved by thinking about the perceived relationship between events and individual’s goal and expectations. The cognition theory has forced the behaviorists to develop more complex explanations of behavior which play role between stimulus and environment. Cognition refers to an individual’s ideas, thought, knowledge, understanding etc. about himself and his environment. For example in a village an old farmer lived with his three sons. One day he came to knew that his end was near so he decided to inherit his wealth to the wisest son. So, he called sons gave them one dollar and said that purchase such thing which cover the whole room. First and second son buy cotton and banana leaves which were unable to fill the room. But third son buy candle with match. He put the curtains of the room to make it dark and enlighten candle. Room becomes glory with candle’s light.so he proves his cognition skill and became able to get the father’s wealth.

ï‚· Social learning theory is a behavior theory. It draws from the classical and operant theories. For example it explains that how a human being learns so much from his social environment from his behavior skill. It also emphasizes that people acquire new behavior by observing and imitating other in the social setting.

Conclusion

Through various learning process people acquire behaviors by directly observing and imitating others. Scientific thinking skill may be described as the ‘the process of acquiring ability to respond adequately to situation which may or may not have been previously encountered, the favorable modification of response tendencies. Thus the scientific thinking skill is can be conclude as a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of prior experiences.