Is Science an Art ?

Werner Van Belle¹^* - werner@yellowcouch.org, werner.van.belle@gmail.com

1- Department for Biosystems Science and Engineering; ETH Zurich; Mattenstrasse 24, Building 1058, Basel; Switzerland

Abstract : This talk presents some common logical traps in scientific reasoning as well as common statistical traps. In general our intuition is neither good in formal logic, nor is it good in statistics, making it necessary for scientists to consciously think about their scientific method. To complement this view we go into some detail into the value of values and discuss the widespread abuse of log values as well as the technique of fitting the data to the model, which is obnviously the wrong scientific direction. Sadly enough this is often found in peak finders and none of my experience so far supports that peak finding is a valueable method, from any point of view.

Keywords: biological scientific method, log values, magnitudes, peak finders
Reference: Werner Van Belle; Is Science an Art ?; Presented at ETH Zurich, Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE), Switzerland; Switzerland; January 2009

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