Translational Neuroscience

37

Research Article • DOI: 10.1515/tnsci-2019-0007 • Translational Neuroscience • 10 • 2019 • 37-43

* E-mail: guaibuyaonao@126.com
 © 2019 Fang Ren, published by De Gruyter. 

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.

1. Introduction

Cognitive science is an emerging 
interdisciplinary subject including cognitive 
psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, 
linguistics, anthropology and cognitive 
neuroscience. Its birth and development have 
had a profound impact on contemporary 
philosophy of science. Cognitive science is an 
emerging interdisciplinary subject involving 
cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, 
philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, 
and cognitive neuroscience. Its birth and 
development have had a profound impact 
on contemporary philosophy of science. The 
study of the formation of scientific theory 
from the perspective of cognitive psychology 
has become a new trend in contemporary 
philosophy of science. Cognitive psychologists 
generally oppose the practice of logical 
positivism and behaviourism against 
psychology, emphasizing the study of human 
psychological processes, and treating cognitive 
processes as a series of information processing 
that can symbolize external environmental 
events and themselves. Knowledge 
representation, problem solving and reasoning, 
pattern recognition, memory learning, and 
language problems are not only important 
research topics in psychology, but also issues 
in the study of philosophy of science. The 
knowledge, concepts, and thinking of cognitive 
psychology research provide a new perspective 

for scientific philosophers to solve the problem 
of philosophy of science.

In the 1980s, cognitive scientists realized 
that neuroscience was the foundation of 
cognitive science. Because the brain’s thinking 
process was not clarified, artificial brain 
simulation of the brain was fundamentally 
impossible. Functionalism’s view of studying 
the mind without relying on the brain is 
increasingly in trouble, and cognitive scientists 
are paying more attention to the research 
of neuroscience. After the emergence of 
cognitive neuroscience in the 1990s, cognitive 
neuroscience is a new-born that combines the 
compelling cognitive science and neuroscience 
in scientific development. It is not only loved 
by both parents, but also by computers. The 
concern of the scientific community, because 
the thorny problems encountered in intelligent 
computer research are all related to cognitive 
neuroscience. The research task of cognitive 
neuroscience is to clarify the brain mechanism 
of cognitive activity. In other words, how does 
the human brain call it? The various levels 
of components, including molecules, cells, 
brain tissue regions, and brains to achieve 
their own cognitive activities are fundamental 
propositions that cognitive neuroscience 
needs to answer.”

The integration of various disciplines 
provides support for the study of contemporary 
philosophy of science which aims at “clarifying 
the brain mechanism of cognitive activities, 

namely, how the human brain mobilizes its 
components at all levels, including molecules, 
cells, brain regions and the whole brain, to 
achieve various cognitive activities” [1]. The 
traditional ability of solving epistemological 
problems is not enough to reveal the riddle 
of human cognition, so it is necessary to 
discuss and construct the mechanism, 
model and reason of human cognition in an 
empirical way and a naturalistic way from the 
inside of cognitive science. Thus, the derived 
contemporary philosophy of science based 
on cognitive neuroscience has become the 
hottest research field of philosophy of science 
at present [2]. Therefore, this study explores 
the influence and the significance of cognitive 
neuroscience on contemporary philosophy of 
science.

1.1 Introduction to cognitive 
neuroscience
The study of the formation of scientific 
theory from the perspective of cognitive 
psychology has become a new trend in 
contemporary philosophy of science. Cognitive 
psychologists generally oppose the practice of 
logical positivism and behaviourism against 
psychology, emphasizing the study of human 
psychological processes, and treating cognitive 
processes as a series of information processing 
that can symbolize external environmental 
events and themselves process. Knowledge 
representation, problem solving and reasoning, 

INFLUENCE OF COGNITIVE 
NEUROSCIENCE ON 

CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY 
OF SCIENCE

Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China

Fang Ren

Abstract
The study of contemporary philosophy of science based on cognitive neuroscience has strongly promoted the 
philosophy study of brain cognitive problems. It has pointed out the research direction for human to explore 
the relationship between the traditional mind and brain while systematically reflecting and investigating the 
theoretical basis and research method of cognitive neuroscience. Therefore, this study explores the influence and 
the significance of cognitive neuroscience on contemporary philosophy of science.

Received 04 December 2018
accepted 28 January 2019

Keywords
Cognitive neuroscience • Contemporary philosophy of science • Implications



38

pattern recognition, memory learning, and 
language problems are not only important 
research topics in psychology, but also 
issues in the study of philosophy of science. 
The knowledge, concepts, and thinking of 
cognitive psychology research provide a new 
perspective for scientific philosophers to solve 
the problem of philosophy of science. Scientific 
philosophers began to draw on the research 
results of cognitive psychology. For example, 
Kuhn used psychology’s Gestalt to transform 
the paradigm shift of analogical science theory. 
Gonick applied the results of human individual 
cognitive development of cognitive psychology 
to scientific theory. The evolution of Nassian 
explains the development of physics theory 
from the perspective of cognitive psychology. 
Jill studies the cognitive structure of scientific 
theory from the perspective of psychology. As 
Sagard said that at present, the philosophy of 
science has undergone a cognitive shift, and it 
attempts to study the development of science 
from the perspective of cognitive psychology 
and artificial intelligence.

Cognitive neuroscience is a discipline to 
study cognition from the level of cranial nerve, 
and is an important field of learning science. 
It mainly focuses on the neural mechanisms 
of perception, selective attention, memory, 
language, emotion and consciousness. 
Cognitive neuroscience has a history of nearly 
20 years. It began to come into people’s view in 
the 1980s and became a new branch of science 
recognized by international academic circles in 
the 1990s. Its development history is shown in 
Figure 1.

Cognitive neuroscience belongs to a branch 
of the field of brain structure and function 

science, which is highly interdisciplinary and 
trans-disciplinary. Cognitive neuroscience 
attaches great importance to rigorous 
experimental research and the application of 
scientific research methods and technologies. 
The emergence of various brain function image 
technology has laid a solid methodological 
foundation for the rapid development of 
cognitive neuroscience [4]. The main research 
methods and technologies are shown in 
Table 1.

1.2 Current status and development 
trend of contemporary philosophy 
of science 

Cognitive science makes cognitive problems 
the focus of scientific philosophy research. 
Logical empiricism and falsifications focus on 
the logical structure of scientific knowledge. 
Historicism pays attention to the social and 
historical investigation of scientific knowledge, 
while ignoring the essence of science and 
the cognitive phenomenon of the core. The 
philosopher of science always pays attention 
to the objective content reflected by scientific 
theory and ignores the relationship between 
this content and the cognitive subject. 
Cognitive science requires studying the 
cognitive ability of the examiner to study 

the role of the individual’s internal cognitive 
factors in forming scientific theories. Scientific 
philosophers must not only analyse linguistic, 
logical, historical, and cultural sciences, but also 
conduct cognitive analysis. The combination 
of cognitive analysis and linguistic analysis, 
logical analysis, historical analysis and cultural 
analysis reinforces the cognitive function of 
scientific philosophy. For example, Sagad 
combines cognitive and social factors to 
study new models of science, and illustrates 
its effectiveness through case studies of the 
chemical revolution.

Nowadays, philosophy of science is in a “non-
breakthrough” period as a whole, that is, there 
is no major breakthrough theory. However, no 
matter how the philosophy of science develops, 
the core of its scientific methodology can’t be 
changed for the reasons shown in Table 2.

At present, pluralism is standing on the 
standpoint of cultural analysis to appeal to the 
cultural explanation of scientific development. 
Although this explanation expands the 
perspective and scope of contemporary 
philosophy of science on a certain level, it 
has the tendency of pan-culturalism and the 
tendency of dispelling scientific rationality. 
The philosophy of technology itself is 
inherently endowed with more cultural traits 

Gazzaniga established 
Cognitive Neuroscience 

Institute

1982

European Cognitive 
Science Proposal (The 

Cognitive 
Neuroscience)

As one of the five 
research guidelines for 

cognitive science

1987

The United States 
proposed the "Decade of 

the Brain" plan;

1990

Europe launches the 
"The European Decade 

of Brain" program;

Japan introduced the 
"Time for Brain 

Science" program.

1991 1996

China ranks "brain science 
and cognitive science" as 
one of the eight leading 

scientific fields.

2006-2020

Figure 1. The development of cognitive neuroscience

Table 1. Main methods and techniques of cognitive neuroscience

Event-related brain 
potential (ERP)

A series of brain waves formed by a brain reaction that has a fixed time 
relationship with actual or expected stimuli (sound, light, and electricity).

Positron Emission 
Tomography (PET)

Using a large number of radioactive isotopes present in the natural elements 
of the human body, multi-level cross-sectional imaging is performed to 

reflect static or dynamic brain functional status.

fMRI Similar to PET, changes in cerebral blood flow and deoxygenated 
haemoglobin concentrations can be recorded by fMRI to indirectly study 

neuronal function

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39

that determine that it is not based on the 
requirements of pure scientific rationality [5]. In 
the 20th century, the cognition, understanding 
and exploration of these problems are a 
process from nature to necessity. Through 
reflection on the course of the 20th century, 
the development of contemporary philosophy 
of science towards the 21st century has formed 
the main objectives and “leading difficulties”, as 
shown in Table 3.

2. The influence of cognitive 
neuroscience on the philosophy 
of science
The development trend of cognitive 
neuroscience is from paying attention to the 
neurobiological activities of the brain to paying 
attention to the high-level cognitive function 
of the brain; from focusing on attention to 
partial level to focusing on the whole brain 
level; from paying attention to the relationship 

between brain activity and behaviour to paying 
attention to the development of brain structure 
and function; from attaching importance to 
brain and external behaviour to attaching 
importance to “gene and environment—
brain—behaviour”. Based on the theoretical 
content of contemporary philosophy of science 
(as shown in Table 4), this part describes 
the influence of cognitive neuroscience on 
contemporary philosophy of science.

2.1 Cognitive neuroscience 
influences the cognitive turn 
of contemporary philosophy of 
science
Human culture influences the humanistic 
trend of philosophy of science. Human cultural 
scientists focus on the impact of environment 
and culture on cognitive ability, and regard 
cognition as a cultural phenomenon. According 
to Leslie A. White’s research, human intelligence 

has hardly developed in thousands of years, and 
cognitive development is the result of culture. 
All human culture, including science, relies on 
symbols, culture, not society. It is a distinctive 
characteristic of human beings. Culture has 
a more direct and more important role in 
science than science in society; a discovery and 
invention is a synthesis of cultural elements that 
have existed or a new element is absorbed into 
one in a cultural system. Maurice N. Richter (Jr) 
believes that science is a cultural counterpart 
as a cognitive development of an individual, 
a growth of traditional cultural knowledge, 
and a cognitive form of cultural development; 
The direction of development is similar to the 
direction of individual cognitive development. 
The starting point of scientific development is 
traditional cultural knowledge. The structure 
of scientific development is generally similar 
to the structure of evolutionary process, 
especially the structure similar to the process 

Table 2. Reasons for not changing the scientific methodology of contemporary philosophy of science

No. Reason

1 Scientific rationality cannot be dispelled, and philosophy of science should always hold high the banner of scientific rationality.

2 The philosophical problems of natural science cannot be dispelled. This is the foundation on which the philosophy of science depends.

3 The analysis method of language philosophy and its context theory are the basis of the various schools of unified philosophy of science and their 
traditional methodology.

4 The subject of science cannot replace scientific questioning methods with social, epistemological, and psychological things.

Table 3. The main objectives of contemporary philosophy of science and its guiding difficulties”

Main target Difficulty

Rebuilding the New Logical Starting Point for the Development of Philosophy of 
Science

How does the starting point surpass the paradigm of logical empiricism, 
historicism, and post-historicism

Build a new platform for mutual dialogue, exchange, penetration and integration 
between scientific realism and anti-realism among various schools.

How to do this on the platform, they can truly communicate with each other and 
promote together, making it a stage for the growth of scientific philosophy.

Exploring a new base for the mutual reference, mutual complementarity, and 
cross-intersection of various scientific methodologies

On this basis, how to obtain an effective unity of the philosophy of science and 
forge a viable innovation theory and development direction

Adhere to the essence of scientific rationality; we must continue to promote the 
spirit of scientific rationality.

Only on this basis can we talk about the unity of scientific rationality and 
irrationality, and talk about the connection between scientific philosophy and the 
schools or disciplines of scientific sociology, scientific knowledge theory, scientific 

history, and scientific culture and philosophy.

Table 4. Theoretical content of contemporary philosophy of science

Content Manifestations

Science as a knowledge production activity Scientific practice reflects nature, clearly shows the way in which science is presented, and highlights 
the ways and methods for discovering science under social and historical circumstances.

Science as a knowledge utilization activity Using science as a paradigm to solve difficult problems using scientific knowledge

Science as a technology transformation activity Reflecting the movement of the material world and the development of change in the form of truth, it 
is the main means and method for humans to understand truth and falsehood.

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40

of cultural evolution. Science is an individual. 
The extension of the level to the cognitive 
development of the cultural level, it is not only 
a developmental growth above the traditional 
cultural knowledge, but also a special cognitive 
variant and extension of cultural evolution. 
Brune Latour and Karin D. Knorr - Cetina 
used anthropological methods to study the 
actual cognitive processes of scientists in the 
laboratory. Xie Tingna called this method a 
micro-prone method. Their research shows 
that the process of scientific cognition is the 
process by which experimental personnel 
create scientific facts. Scientific experiments 
are not to discover facts but to create facts. The 
experimental social network is not a scientific 
community, but a social network formed by 
super-recognizing resource relationships. 
Cultural studies of science have moved the 
philosophy of science from a philosophy of 
science to a philosophy of science and culture. 
Sixth, cognitive neuroscience affects the 
cognitive shift of philosophy of science. Qiu 
Qilande believes: “The scientific philosopher 
is a cognitive scientist. For a long time, 
philosophers are the only cognitive scientists.” 
As philosophers of cognitive scientists, they did 
not initially consider neuroscience as cognitive 
science. In part, and the whole philosophical 
foundation of artificial intelligence is considered 

to be anti-biological, it is advocated that the 
abstract program hierarchy with algorithms is 
independent of the neurobiology of the brain 
or the hardware level of the computer silicon 
chip. In other words, neurobiological details 
do not help people understand the level of 
cognition.

Philosophers, as cognitive scientists, did 
not regard neuroscience as part of cognitive 
science at first, and believed that the entire 
philosophical basis of artificial intelligence 
is anti-biological; advocating that the 
abstract program level with algorithms was 
independent of the neurobiology of the brain 
or the hardware level of a computer silicon 
chip. All the difficult problems encountered 
in intelligent computer research are related to 
cognitive neuroscience. The task of cognitive 
neuroscience is to clarify the brain mechanism 
of cognitive activities. The discussion of the 
status quo and future of artificial intelligence 
has already become the focus of popular 
culture, which will have far-reaching influence 
on the development of the organization form 
and structure of the whole human society 
[7]. According to the structure of cognitive 
neuroscience and contemporary philosophy 
of science, the artificial intelligence can be 
divided into three levels: artificial intelligence, 
artificial life and artificial wisdom based on 

cognitive dimension and philosophy of science 
(as shown in Table 5).

2.2 Human culture influences the 
humanistic trend of contemporary 
philosophy of science
All human cultures, including science, depend 
on symbols. It is culture rather than society 
that is the distinctive feature of human beings. 
Culture plays a more direct and important role 
in science than society. A kind of discovery 
and invention is the synthesis of existing 
cultural elements or the absorption of a new 
element into a cultural system [8]. The direction 
of scientific development is similar to that of 
individual cognitive development. The starting 
point of scientific development is traditional 
cultural knowledge. The structure of scientific 
development is generally similar to that of 
evolutionary process. It is not only the growth 
of traditional cultural knowledge, but also 
a special cognitive variant and extension of 
cultural evolution. Through the accumulation of 
traditional cultural knowledge, contemporary 
philosophers of science can provide basic 
concepts and ideological basis for cognitive 
neuroscience, as well as examine and reflect on 
the basic assumptions by using the methods of 
argument, conceptual analysis and historical 
reflection (as shown in Table 6).

Table 5. Artificial intelligence hierarchy

Artificial intelligence level Division basis Thinking qualities Functional positioning

Artificial intelligence Have smart behaviour or 
performance

Mainly based on memory level Extension of human thinking and functional assistant

Artificial life Self-reproducing ability Have symbol communication 
skills

Different from human primary life

Artificial intelligence Self-awareness and emotion Emotional thinking ability May be dangerous to humans and need special treatment

Table 6. The philosophical method of the use of cognitive neuroscience by contemporary philosophers of science

Methods Manifestations

Dispute method Contemporary scientific philosophy penetrates into the core of various disciplines with its dialectical role, and 
dialectically analyses the contradictions between scientists’ empirical findings and theories.

Concept description method The concept of cognition plays an important role in cognitive science. The concept of cognition is the premise and 
foundation of cognition and reasoning. In cognitive science, cognitive science tends to focus on the specific process 

of acquiring new concepts from experience or other concepts.

Historical reflection and critical method Philosophical reflection can transcend experience, exceed existing, present and present, and overcome common 
sense and prejudice. The exploratory and creative nature of philosophical activities and the charm of philosophy are 

reflected in this critical reaction of “making problems a problem”.

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41

2.3 Modern philosophy of mind 
provides cognitive theoretical 
basis for contemporary scientific 
philosophers to explore 
neurocognitive process
Cognitive science deepens the understanding 
of the nature of scientific knowledge. Logical 
empiricism regards scientific knowledge 
as a static propositional language system, 
falsifications emphasizes the process of 
conjecture of scientific knowledge acquisition, 
and historicism exaggerates the social 
agreement factors formed by scientific 
knowledge. They submerged cognitive 
problems in language analysis, historical 
analysis and psychosocial analysis, replacing 
cognition with the linguistic, historical and 
social psychology of scientific knowledge, 
ignoring the close correlation between 
scientific knowledge and psychological 
representation. Although the early thinkers 
Plato, Locke, and Kant discussed the 
psychological representation, they were 
rejected by positivism and behaviourism as a 
metaphysical construction. The development 
of cognitive science has made people realize 
that scientific knowledge is the representation 
and symbolization of the real world in 
psychology, and psychological representation 
provides a partial picture of the real world. 
Scientists form a psychological representation 
of all aspects of their activities, so that scientific 
knowledge is reflected in the psychological 
representation of scientists. The current 
central hypothesis of cognitive science holds 
that the most appropriate understanding of 
thinking is to regard it as a representational 
structure in the mind and a computational 
program that operates on these structures. 
People generate thoughts and behaviours by 
running psychological programs on top of 
psychological representations, while different 
types of psychological representations of logic, 
rules, concepts, analogies, representations, 
and connections support different types 
of psychological procedures. These 
characterizations together constitute the 
scientist’s knowledge system, and through 
the communication and dialogue between 
scientists, form a common representation of the 
scientific community. Therefore, psychological 

representations represent the essence of 
scientific theory, and the theory is hidden in 
the psychological representation of scientists.

The philosophy of mind with information 
processing as its core has exerted an important 
influence on scientific realism. To some extent, 
both enactive cognition and situational 
cognition can be integrated by embodied 
cognition [9]. Therefore, from the discussion of 
these two points, we can basically distinguish 
between cognitivism and embodied cognition 
approach (as shown in Figure 2).

3. The significance of cognitive 
neuroscience to the philosophy 
of science

The emergence of cognitive scientists with 
philosophical minds and philosophers with 
cognitive science knowledge is very useful to 
overcome this gap. As mentioned above, the 
profound influences of cognitive neuroscience 
on contemporary philosophy of science will 

cause fundamental changes in the research 
strategy of philosophy of science and the basis 
of science of interpretation, as shown in Table 
7. Based on this, the significance of cognitive 
neuroscience to contemporary philosophy 
of science is expressed in the following four 
aspects:

3.1 Providing basic concepts, 
ideological foundations and 
reflections for contemporary 
philosophy of science
The most basic thought of cognitive science 
comes from the construction of philosophy. 
The task of cognitive neuroscience is to clarify 
the brain mechanism of cognitive activities 
[10]. People produce thinking and behaviour by 
running psychological procedure on mental 
representation while logic, rule, concept, 
analogy, representation and connection of 
mental representation support different types 
of philosophical forms. These representations 
constitute the knowledge system of the 

Brain

Cognitivism

Computation-
characterization

Body Envirment

Philosophy of mind

Non-characteristic-kinetic-
biology-phenomenology

Figure 2. The basic style of cognitivism and philosophy of mind

Table 7. The Change of Cognitive Neuroscience to Contemporary Philosophy of Science

Cognitive neuroscience makes cognitive issues 
the focus of contemporary scientific philosophy.

The combination of cognitive analysis and language 
analysis, logical analysis, historical analysis and 

cultural analysis reinforces the cognitive function of 
philosophy of science.

Cognitive neuroscience deepens the 
understanding of the nature of scientific 

knowledge.

Think of it as the characterization structure in the mind 
and the computational procedures that operate on 

these structures

Cognitive neuroscience contributes to the solution 
of problems found in contemporary philosophy 

of science.

The discovery of contemporary philosophy of science 
is a solution to creative problems and is a sequence of 

cognitive operations guided by goals.

Cognitive Neuroscience Deepens the Evaluation of 
Contemporary Philosophy of Science

Cognitive neuroscience puts the evaluation of the 
philosophy of science between the individual’s 

selection criteria and the objective criteria commonly 
recognized by the scientific community.

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42

contemporary philosophers of science, 
and form the common representation of 
the contemporary scientific philosophy 
community through the communication and 
dialogue between the scientific philosophers. 
To this end, we must reflect on the problems as 
shown in Table 8.

3.2 Examining and reflecting the 
basic assumption of contemporary 
philosophy of science
For cognitive neuroscience, each specialized 
theory that explores the mind is assumed based 
on basic theory and methodology, and forms 
the basis of the entire cognitive neuroscience 
despite further testing is needed. The basic 
assumption of dualism is that the mind exists 
independently of the body while the basic 
assumption of materialism is that the mind 
depends on living body. The basic assumption 
of behaviourism is that the mind doesn’t exist 
and the behaviour determines the function 
while the basic assumption of functionalism is 
that the psychological state and the physical 
state are causal relations. The assumption of 
representational computation is that the mind 
is a process of representational computation.

3.3 Clarify and test the basic issues 
and propositions of contemporary 
philosophy of science
In cognitive neuroscience, contemporary 
philosophers of science usually don’t conduct 
systematic empirical observations or build 

computational models. They deal with some 
basic problems of cognitive neuroscience, 
such as the rationality of computer metaphor, 
the nature of representation and computation, 
general knowledge, the nature of intelligence, 
and the essence of explanation in cognitive 
science, the function of consciousness in 
mental research, how people carry out 
normative thinking, so as to clarify these 
questions and test the certainty from the logic 
and significance. Therefore, we can say that 
contemporary scientific philosophy without 
cognitive neuroscience is empty, and cognitive 
neuroscience without contemporary scientific 
philosophy is blind.

4. Conclusions

These profound influences of cognitive science 
on philosophy of science will fundamentally 
change the research strategy of science 
philosophy and the foundation of science. 
Cognitive science makes cognitive problems 
the focus of scientific philosophy research. 
Cognitive science requires studying the 
cognitive ability of the examiner to study the 

role of the individual’s internal cognitive factors 
in forming scientific theories. The combination 
of cognitive analysis and linguistic analysis, 
logical analysis, historical analysis and cultural 
analysis reinforces the cognitive function of 
scientific philosophy.

The flourishing research of contemporary 
neuroscience and cognitive neuroscience has 
not only answered and solved the mechanism 
of human cognitive function, but also 
enriched and supported the research content 
of philosophy of cognitive neuroscience. 
Neuroscience with neuron and brain structure 
as its research object is connected with 
philosophy, especially philosophy of science, 
which has become a frontier field in the 
development of contemporary philosophy of 
science. From the perspective of philosophy, 
especially epistemology, the emergence of 
the philosophy of cognitive neuroscience 
is an inevitable process of exploring the 
mechanism of human cognition to a great 
extent, which obviously becomes the direct 
impetus of the emergence of cognitive 
neuroscience in the field of contemporary 
philosophy of science.

Table 8. Reflection on contemporary philosophy of science under cognitive neuroscience

The Origin Reflection of 
Contemporary Philosophy of 
Science Based on Cognitive 

Neuroscience.

Thinking about the general research ideas and assumptions 
followed by cognitive neuroscience is a set of rigorous and orderly 

natural science research ideas and research hypotheses, and it is 
also a science-based armed force that psychology pursues science.

Methodological Reflection on 
Contemporary Philosophy of 

Science in Cognitive Neuroscience.

Scientific methods determine the choice of scientific research issues 
and determine the appropriateness of scientific knowledge. The 

progress of science depends on the progress and improvement of 
scientific methods.

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