66
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

You took that from the page titled "Discovery (observation)". Of course it says that discovery requires observation.

Here's a more nuanced view:

Scientific discovery is the process or product of successful scientific inquiry. Objects of discovery can be things, events, processes, causes, and properties as well as theories and hypotheses and their features (their explanatory power, for example).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-discovery/

So it can refer to either the thing itself or to the theory that explains it. Using your definition, theoretical scientists could never "discover" anything.

We say Einstein "discovered" general relativity, even though he was a theoretical physicist, and never physically observed anything first.

[-] forwardvoid@feddit.nl 1 points 7 months ago

Fair point about my source and statement. The main issue I have with your earlier statement is that you say “realizing and describing” equals discovering.
A proper theory at least needs some proof, be it purely theoretical. Otherwise one could argue that people discovered flat earth, there’s plenty of descriptions on how it works floating around. Having purely theoretical proof also means I do not agree that theoretical physicists can not discover things. Einsteins discoveries were all substantiated by rigorous mathematical proofs.

this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
66 points (86.7% liked)

science

14348 readers
161 users here now

just science related topics. please contribute

note: clickbait sources/headlines aren't liked generally. I've posted crap sources and later deleted or edit to improve after complaints. whoops, sry

Rule 1) Be kind.

lemmy.world rules: https://mastodon.world/about

I don't screen everything, lrn2scroll

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS