Scientific Method

The scientific method is a framework of techniques and questions that scientists use to investigate phenomena with the aim of making scientific discoveries simple and reproducible. It's been loosely observed by experimenters going as far back as the 4th century BC, but the first properly formalized scientific method was coined during the European Renaissance. Here individuals at the forefront of science like Francis Bacon, Galileo, and Isaac Newton started putting into routine practice the rules that we use to carry out experiments today.

Typically, the first step of the scientific method is to formulate a question, usually after observation of a phenomenon. For example, say you have been raising caterpillars and have noticed that some take longer than others to get to pupation. And you wonder, do the caterpillars develop at different rates depending on the temperature?

This is where the second part of the scientific method comes in, the hypothesis. A hypothesis is an uncertain explanation as to why we observe what we observe, and there are two main types. The first is the experimental or alternative hypothesis, and it implies that there will be a relationship between the variables