Theory:
1.) Science-- Karl Popper:
"At a very general level, Popper argues that historicism and holism have their origins in what he terms ‘one of the oldest dreams of mankind - the dream of prophecy, the idea that we can know what the future has in store for us, and that we can profit from such knowledge by adjusting our policy to it.’ (Conjectures and Refutations, 338).
"http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#Pred
[C.P. + E.S.]=U.P.
where C.P.=Conditional Prediction;
.S.=Existential Statement;
U.P.=Unconditional Prophecy."
Popper's idea about doing science is that you formulate a hypothesis, try to prove it wrong, and, from your results, formulate a new hypothesis."
Basic Theoretical Foundations & Theorists:
1.) The Scientific Method-- Karl Popper: critical rationalism wikipedia: "Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH, FRS (July 28, 1902 – September 17, 1994), was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. He is counted among the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century, and also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy. Popper is perhaps best known for repudiating the classical observationalist-inductivist account of scientific method by advancing empirical falsifiability as the criterion for distinguishing scientific theory from non-science; and for his vigorous defense of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism which he took to make the flourishing of the "open society" possible."
2.) Pragmatism-- John Dewey: Pragmatism
"John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thought has been greatly influential in the United States and around the world. He is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophical school of Pragmatism (along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James), a pioneer in functional psychology, and a leading representative of the progressive movement in U.S. education during the first half of the 20th century." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
more on Dewey
"Facts are evidential and are tests of an idea in so far as they are capable of being organized with one another. The organization can be achieved only as they interact with one another. When the problematic situation is such as to require extensive inquiries to effect its resolution, a series of interactions intervenes. Some observed facts point to an idea that stands for a possible solution. This idea evokes more observations. Some of the newly observed facts link up with those previously observed and are such as to rule out other observed things with respect to their evidential function. The new order of facts suggests a modified idea (or hypothesis) which occasions new observations whose result again determines a new order of facts, and so on until the existing order is both unified and complete. In the course of this serial process, the ideas that represent possible solutions are tested or "proved."
Meantime, the orders of fact, which present themselves in consequence of the experimental observations the ideas call out and direct, are trial facts. They are provisional. They are "facts" if they are observed by sound organs and techniques. But they are not
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