So they always say we should come up with some kind of prediction of what is going to happen in an experiment, but won't that make us prone to some form of bias? Won't we to some degree want our prediction to be true?

well the idea is you are taking a measurement which is less prone to bias. But it can happen, a famous example is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment#Millikan.27s_experiment_as_an_example_of_psychological_effects_in_scientific_methodology

In my freshman physics lab, we had a dilemma where my group measured the acceleration of gravity as something like 8.8 +/- 0.1 m/s^2. We debated whether we should discard our results and re-do the experiment, or submit our apparently crazy results. We decided to submit our nutty results, accompanied with a statement of what we think went wrong. We felt this was the most honest approach.

This post was edited by Azrad on Feb 6 2013 06:59am

That last part reminds me of a story I heard. The King of some land was about to retire, so he looked at his 3 sons to decide which to appoint as the new king. He couldn't decide so he gave them a test. He had boiled 3 sunflower seeds, and gave one to each of his sons, knowing they wouldn't grow, and told them that whoever had the biggest flower could be king. Two of his sons noticed that their seeds weren't growing, so they went out and bought the biggest sunflower they could to try to impress the king. The third son tried as hard as he could but the sunflower just wouldn't grow. Some weeks had passed and it came time for the King to judge his sons' flowers. The first two sons showed off their equally impressive sunflowers, while the third came with only an empty pot. He told his father, "I tried as hard as I could, but no matter what I did the flower just wouldn't grow." The King tells him "Because you were honest with me, you shall be king." And they all lived happily ever after, except the first two sons.

/e In topic title, meant Scientific Method**, not theory. I'm a dumb dumb

This post was edited by Mastersam93 on Feb 6 2013 08:48am

heh, that is what I figured.

But yeah, even physics is not immune to bias (although I would argue it is more resistant to it than other fields). The potential for bias is always lurking, trying to find a way in. You must remain vigilant to prevent it, and even then it might slip through...

sounds like 50% of my engineering labs..

Heh, well there were 4 people in my group. This was the first lab we had done in the class (and the first lab I had ever done, in any class). One of the guys in our group really seemed to know what he was doing so we kind of let him run it. Later we learned that this was his 3rd time taking the class (he had received less than a C twice before). He was the one who was responsible for the error, and we never let him touch anything ever again.

/e oh he is also the one who when I asked him what the sin of a certain angle was, punched it up on his calculator and said something like "2.1234" and when I told him that must be wrong, freaked the fuck out.

This post was edited by Azrad on Feb 6 2013 01:59pm

Science is about proving something to be false. By ruling out all false choices, one could arrive at the final and correct.

To discover evolution, we had to rule out other theories first.

This is why we have a peer review net.

If the researcher "fudges" the experiment to force his or her predictions to be true, then the experiment will never truly be repeatable.

If this is the case, then the data is ripped to shreds by the scientific community and the researcher's name will most likely be ruined.

This post was edited by piddywiffle on Feb 6 2013 04:27pm

He's right that most experiments set out to falsify something, but he's wrong in the aspect that there is a final and correct answer.

Science has not defined itself in this fashion.

I blame politics.