Can someone discuss where scientists are in discovering new methods of research on researching science?

Sadly, my experience is that very little is being done. Science has become so specialized and compartmentalized that many scientists have become almost idiot-savants, focussed laser-like on a single target, with astonishing levels of ignorance about topics which fall outside the narrowly-delineated areas of their expertise.

The majority of the working scientists to whom I have spoken aren’t even aware of the existence of the philosophy of science, often dismissing me as a “pomo” (a pejorative term for a post-modernist) for, for example, differentiating between fact and truth. (This is extremely important, since empiricism, by definition, cannot make truth claims, truth being a metaphysical quality. Not coincidentally, this demonstrates why science is limited, and must be used in conjunction with both rationalism and revelation.)

There are not many polymaths and renaissance men left in science; the few who are experts in multiple fields and capable of syngergizing disparate disciplines, like Roger Penrose, are generally controversial and aging rapidly.

I am not optimistic about the state of science today.

”differentiating between fact and truth.”
poppycock

I would think each specific field would have its own literature pertaining to this. You might go to a library and do some database searching in science databases on research methodology and see what you discover.

@ragingloli At the risk of going off-topic, Kant spends a great deal of time explaining how a fact and truth are different, and designing systems of categorization (“schema” in Kantian terminology) to keep them separate. A fact is a thing which is believed by such a large supermajority of the population that it’s accepted as being axiomatic. Truth, on the other hand, refers to the thing-in-itself (to use Kantian terminology again), the ineffable source of the qualia we perceive. Inability (or unwillingness) to recognize the difference between representation and the thing-in-itself is probably the single problem most responsible for holding back the advance of science. Gravitation, for example, is a fact; it does not “exist” in the sense most people understand it, but is rather an a posteriori expectation that things will tend to fall down based on fallacious induction. While in everyday life this might not seem like a big deal, in the world of science the misunderstanding may well be responsible for the inability to develop a Grand Unifying Theorem.

Science unfortunately has turned into a cause of special interests rather than true science. Scepticism, which has never accomplished anything relating to scientific acheivements that I’ve ever been aware of, is now considered to be a useful part of science ironically. There are alot of special interests involved with the organizations that hire/fund scientists and their research. The lone great scientist would be considered a crank today.

I do have some hope for science thanks to a growing number of researchers and sites like this, this and this. Indeed though it will be an extremely gradual transition.

@SmashTheState
Fact is not a consensus. Fact is observed reality. Using anything else but that as a basis, and you would introduce weakness into science.

@ragingloli Ceci n’est pas une pipe. The image of a pipe is not a pipe. The map of the world is not the world.

The field of philosophy of science evolves like everything else.

I’d like everyone to note the number of “great answers” @ragingloli has gotten for hir comments. The fact that so many people not only believe that a fact and a truth are synonymous, but agree that the entire underpinning of the philosophy of science, from Aristotle to Kant, is “poppycock,” tells us a great deal about the state of science in the educational system – and helps explain why so many working scientists are oblivious to very existence of epistemology.

Scientific exploration has always been a clash of egos where one scientist theorizes and another refutes the evidence involved.. Even Einstein had his nay sayers that most of the scientific establishment refuted until after his death. It’s basically a group of contraries who deny others their 15 minutes because others denied them theirs.It’s a bunch of questions waiting for an answer that can be challenged with more questions and sometimes a few slip through the cracks but usually after the theorist’s demise when enough bumping heads get together without the fear that only one claims responsibility then as a compromise names it after the person posthumously so as to not have to give praise to anyone living…I’ve known some of these pencil neck bungholes and that’s exactly how they operate.. Nothing short of free based science mixed along side of capitalistic politics.