The Laws of Heredity

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE METHOD OF SCIENCE Biological sects?Facts patent to our senses?Facts obscured to them?The function of laboratory methods of inquiry?The methods by which the facts of the various sciences are observed?' Exact Methods '?The nature of science?The scientific value of facts?The mental processes...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE METHOD OF SCIENCE Biological sects?Facts patent to our senses?Facts obscured to them?The function of laboratory methods of inquiry?The methods by which the facts of the various sciences are observed?' Exact Methods '?The nature of science?The scientific value of facts?The mental processes by means of which facts are classified ?Hypotheses and theories?The necessity for testing thinking?The method by which it is done?Induction and deduction?Laboratory methods when used as means of discovery and as tests for thinking?The common neglect of tests? The essence of the experimental method?The value of controversy?The distinction between facts and theories?The legitimate and illegitimate uses of deduction?The contrasts between physical, chemical, and biological theories? The value of experiment in these sciences?Laws of nature?Deduction an essential part of the mental processes of rational beings. 53- f ] HE reasoning by which we have demonstrated that the development of the individual is a recapitulation of the evolution of the race, is in some measure deductive. The facts from which we started our thinking have all been gathered by simple observation. Thus the fact that offspring tend to recapitulate with variations the parental development has been simply observed. The language used by some biological workers indicates an opinion that deduction is illegitimate, or at least unsafe.1 Others maintain, in effect, that materials furnished by experiment, or some such aid to observation, affords the only safe basis or test for reasoning.2 The points thus raised, involvBIOLOGICAL SCHOOLS 31 1 The statement that deduction?any and every sort of deduction?is con sidered illegitimate by any section of scientific workers may be received with incredulity by people who are ...