Understanding Scientific Study via Process Modeling

Abstract

This paper argues that scientific studies distinguish themselves from other studies by a combination of their processes, their (knowledge) elements and the roles of these elements. This is supported by constructing a process model. An illustrative example based on Newtonian mechanics shows how scientific knowledge is structured according to the process model. To distinguish scientific studies from research and scientific research, two additional process models are built for such processes. We apply these process models: (1) to argue that scientific progress should emphasize both the process of change and the content of change; (2) to chart the major stages of scientific study development; and (3) to define "science".

Principle Theory or Constructive Theory?

“…What is the motivation to combine principle theories and constructive theories into one type? We have mentioned that our first motivation is to ensure the generality of the theory and model of scientific study by Luk (2010;2017) to include constructive theories. Our second motivation is that eventually, it may be that all theories are principle theories (without the default principle) in science even though there is no guarantee to such an outcome.…”

“…These generalized models may optionally refine to specific models that are separate from the theory and that directly correspond to the experiments. Alternatively, these generalized models may directly connect to the experiment entity without going through any other model (see Luk [2010]). Since for both Type A and Type B principle theories, they have principles, it would appear that principle theories are distinct from constructive theories which only have models without any principles.…”

“…One observation of models outside the theory is that these models are close to the experiment or physical situation. So, these models typically make simplifying assumptions so that the models are tractable (Luk, 2010). These simplifying assumptions are made not because they are believed to be true but that they are convenient to produce a tractable model and therefore a solution to the problem.…”

“…Therefore, we believe that such generalized model should be part of the theory. Note that for a theory to be believed to be true, we only need the model or the theory to have a one-to-one mapping (i.e., injective) to the physical objects or events (Luk, 2010;2020). We are not required that every physical object or event must be modeled by the theory or the generalized model in the theory, because we do not require the mapping to be surjective.…”

“…Einstein made a distinction (Flores, 1999) between principle theories (Lange, 2014) like Newtonian mechanics and constructive theories like kinetic theory of gases. If these two types of theories are fundamentally different, then the theory and model of scientific study by Luk (2010;2017) are incomplete because they only recognize principle theories although it is mentioned that a theory may contain models in (Luk, 2018). If they are fundamentally different, then why should scientific knowledge be organized into these different types of theories?…”