Science is a discipline which is built on a specific methodology in terms of coming up with hypothesis and testing and experimenting in order to verify the validity of the hypothesis. This methodological often employs a particular kind of thinking governed by six principles of scientific thinking. However, one of the most important scientific thinking principle is that of ruling out of rival hypothesis. If something is true, then only one explanation can be used to give an account of the scientific fact that is being tried to be proved. Therefore, in the presence of contradicting hypothesis, the observations should be able to falsify one hypothesis while supporting another hypothesis (Ruckmich, 1918).
In this way, the accurate hypothesis can be identified. This scientific thinking principle is important as it is applicable in the early stages of conducting research. Therefore, when one’s research is built on accurate hypothesis, the conclusion from the research tends to be more accurate. Another scientific thinking principle that is important is the principle of replicability. The principle proposes that whatever that can or should be considered as a fact should be able to be conducted or proved again provided that the initial conditions are maintained at a constant.
This thinking principle is important as it helps other scientists to verify the procedure and results of theories that have been proposed by other scientists. This scientific thinking principle does not only serve the purpose of validating scientific information that has been suggested by other scientists but also to help in the development of scientific knowledge (Ruckmich, 1918). In this way, many scientists can act as team players each participating in the advancement from one level to another through developing experiments that can be replicated for further studies by other scientists.
As a result, scientific thinking principle of replicability comes out as one of the important scientific thinking principles. In an article which attempted to explain the significance of fathers in parenting of infants offered some of the benefits of the presence of fathers before, during, and after birth. The article suggests that fathers matter much more in parenting than the popular culture has suggested. One of the explanations which has been brought forth by the article is that the father’s presence during pregnancy actually affect the wellbeing of the child while in the womb. The article goes further to suggest that the children whose fathers were not present during the pregnancy period experience four times a likelihood of infant mortality during the first year (Gary, 2016).
However this explanation seems to be pseudoscientific as it tends to imply that correlation is causation without any particular evidence. There should be evidence which explains the exact causational relationship between a higher propensity of infant mortality within the first year, and father abseentism during pregnancy. Generally, the scientific thinking principles act as a guidelines to establish a line between topics which can be considered as pseudoscientific and topics which can be classified within the field of science with confidence (Ruckmich, 1918). Therefore, as a scholar it is of paramount importance to utilize the scientific thinking principles when evaluating psychological topics.
Personally, I believe that through the use of the scientific thinking principles, I will be able to filter through reliable information about psychological issues judging by integrating the thinking principles. For example, I will be keen to differentiate between correlational relationships and causational relationships from the information provided about psychological topics. I will also use the principle of replicability in order to establish whether by emulating the experiments and research of other scholars I will be able to obtain similar results. The variance that will emerge will help to determine whether there is an information gap that needs to be solved, hence the need for further research.