A framework that seeks to understand and classify the different types of scientific paradigms themselves. It's a paradigm about paradigms. For instance, it might categorize paradigms as reductionist vs. holistic, deterministic vs. probabilistic, or mechanistic vs. vitalistic. It asks: What are the meta-categories that all scientific worldviews fall into? This is a bird's-eye view of the landscape of possible scientific thought.
Scientific Metaparadigm Theory Example: Seeing Darwinian evolution (contingent, historical) and Newtonian physics (deterministic, law-based) as belonging to two different Metaparadigms—one focused on narrative and history, the other on timeless laws—is an act of Scientific Metaparadigm Theory. It helps explain why these fields have such different cultures and standards of proof.
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Get the Scientific Metaparadigm Theory mug.The deliberate or institutionalized practice within scientific research of selecting only hypotheses, experimental designs, data, or analyses that are likely to yield a preferred, publishable, or fundable result. This includes p-hacking, HARKing (Hypothesizing After Results are Known), and the file drawer problem (not publishing null results). It corrupts the scientific process by making the literature a curated museum of "successes," not an accurate map of reality.
Scientific Picking *Example: A pharmaceutical company runs 20 trials on a new drug. The two that show a mild positive effect (likely by chance) are published. The 18 showing no effect or harm are filed away. This Scientific Picking creates a public, peer-reviewed "fact" of the drug's efficacy that is a complete statistical mirage.*
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Get the Scientific Picking mug.The broad range of systemic and cognitive prejudices that distort the practice of science. These include publication bias, funding bias, cultural bias in peer review, and theory-ladenness of observation. They ensure that science is not a perfectly objective mirror of nature, but a human institution whose outputs are shaped by social, economic, and psychological forces.
Scientific Biases Example: For decades, Scientific Bias against female physiology meant that heart disease was studied almost exclusively in male subjects, leading to diagnostic criteria and treatments that were less effective for women. The bias was embedded in what was considered a "standard" research subject.
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