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The Place of Structural Geology in Sciences
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SCIENCES: Search for knowledge about the Universe its origin, its evolution and how it works.
GEOSCIENCES: Search for knowledge about the Earth, how it formed, evolved, and how it works.
STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY (10-4 m to 102 m) - TECTONICS (102 m to 105 m): Search for knowledge about how Earth's materials (minerals, rocks, rock formations, lithospheric plates etc.) respond to stresses, and why (i.e. what processes?).
GEODYNAMICS: Search for knowledge about forces that drive displacement and deformation of Earth's material. |
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Scientific Approach
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As any scientist, structural geologists follow a scientific approach that combines: Fact, Hypothesis, Model, Theory, Law and Truth.
FACT: a bit of truth.
HYPOTHESIS: an assumed fact.
Facts (as many as possible) and Hypotheses (as little as possible) are combined into MODELS: A model is a self-consistent framework providing a coherent explanation for the observed facts.
THEORY: a robust model.
LAW: A theory that appears to be always verified. A law is only verified within a domain of validity.
TRUTH: Not a scientific concept.
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Scientific Methods: Bacon vs Darwin |
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BACONIAN METHOD: Collection of facts without regard to a particular model or theory. Eventually the dataset self organizes into a model. This assumes somehow that the truth is always obvious.
DARWINIAN METHOD: A model is built out of a set of facts. The model is used to make verifiable predictions. The model is tested by comparing these predictions against new data, if necessary the model is modified. This iterative process eventually leads toward a robust model.
IN REALITY...: Scientific progresses are almost never the result of strictly rational scientific methods. Intuition, non-rational and non-logical thinking make Science more fun and more exciting.
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