Science uses an empirical approach.
Empiricism (founded by John Locke) states that the only source of knowledge comes through our senses – e.g. sight, hearing etc.
This was in contrast to the existing view that knowledge could be gained solely through the powers of reason and logical argument (known as rationalism). Thus, empiricism is the view that all knowledge is based on, or may come from experience.
The empirical approach through gaining knowledge through experience quickly became the scientific approach and greatly influenced the development of physics and chemistry in the 17th and 18th centuries.
empiricism psychology science
The idea that knowledge should be gained through experience, i.e. empirically, turned into a method of inquiry that used careful observation and experiments to gather facts and evidence.
The nature of scientific inquiry may be thought of at two levels:
1. that to do with theory and the foundation of hypotheses.
2. and actual empirical methods of inquiry (i.e. experiments, observations)
The prime empirical method of inquiry in science is the experiment.
The key features of the experiment are control over variables (independent, dependent and extraneous), careful objective measurement and establishing cause and effect relationships.