Scientific method

===Role of chance in discovery===
{{Main|Role of chance in scientific discoveries}}

[[File:Sample of penicillin mould presented by Alexander Fleming to Douglas Macleod, 1935 (9672239344).jpg|thumb|left<!--#lefty anarchy-->|A famous example of discovery being stumbled upon was Alexander Fleming's [[Alexander Fleming#Discovery of penicillin|discovery of Penicillin]]. One of his bacteria cultures got contaminated with mould in which surroundings the bacteria had died off; thereby the method of discovery was simply knowing what to look out for.]]

Somewhere between 33% and 50% of all [[Scientific discovery|scientific discoveries]] are estimated to have been ''stumbled upon'', rather than sought out. This may explain why scientists so often express that they were lucky.<ref name=DunbarLuck>Dunbar, K., & Fugelsang, J. (2005). Causal thinking in science: How scientists and students interpret the unexpected. In M.E. Gorman, R.D. Tweney, D. Gooding & A. Kincannon (Eds.), Scientific and Technical Thinking (pp. 57–79). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.</ref> [[Louis Pasteur]] is credited with the famous saying that "Luck favours the prepared mind", but some psychologists have begun to study what it means to be 'prepared for luck' in the scientific context. Research is showing that scientists are taught various heuristics that tend to harness chance and the unexpected.<ref name="DunbarLuck"/><ref name="Oliver, J.E. 1991">{{cite book |last=Oliver |first=J.E. |year=1991 |chapter=Ch 2 |title=The incomplete guide to the art of discovery |place=New York |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=9780231076203}}</ref> This is what [[Nassim Nicholas Taleb]] calls "Anti-fragility"; while some systems of investigation are fragile in the face of [[human error]], human bias, and randomness, the scientific method is more than resistant or tough – it actually benefits from such randomness in many ways (it is anti-fragile). Taleb believes that the more anti-fragile the system, the more it will flourish in the real world.<ref name=Anti-fragility>{{cite web |last=Taleb |first=Nassim N. |title=Antifragility — or— The Property Of Disorder-Loving Systems |url=http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_3.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2013-05-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130507124322/http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_3.html}}</ref>

{{anchor|startWithBugs}}Psychologist Kevin Dunbar says the process of discovery often starts with researchers finding bugs in their experiments. These unexpected results lead researchers to try to fix what they ''think'' is an error in their method. Eventually, the researcher decides the error is too persistent and systematic to be a coincidence. The highly controlled, cautious, and curious aspects of the scientific method are thus what make it well suited for identifying such persistent systematic errors. At this point, the researcher will begin to think of theoretical explanations for the error, often seeking the help of colleagues across different domains of expertise.<ref name="DunbarLuck"/><ref name="Oliver, J.E. 1991"/>
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