Positivism

I distinctly remember the test question in junior high science class that queried “name the steps in the scientific method.” That question is actually quite logical. The scientific process is the process by which we come to acquire knowledge. But when we start putting big words to it to describe the steps, what used to be simply burning ants with a magnifying glass became a laborious, official process. ‘Conjecture’ and ‘hypothesis’ and ‘null hypothesis’ and ‘control group’ not only complicated the matter, but made a whole lot more work. “You mean I have to write all this stuff down before I do anything? That’s lame. Just give me the knife and let me at that dead frog. Why does everything have to be so official?”
Well, I’m finding that out. The scientific method, or positivism, doesn’t tell us anything more about truth or reality than the exact, specific thing we observe for the exact, specific time we observe it and under the exact, specific conditions that exist as we observe. That’s why writing it all down, which is boring and takes all the fun out of it, is important. For each exploration into positivism, we must know what assumptions we are making. We have to know what we are taking for granted, or taking as given. Hence the statement that epistemology really is more fundamental than is ontology. Of course we can know what we know; but can we really know what is? You only know what you can prove.