forum 8: week of 5 March: tests and evidence

Both of what they are saying makes sense to me because i believe in scientific experimentation ones results must not only explain what is going on in the world but also be properly set up. In experimental method we say internal and external validity. Internal being that your experiment is set up in such a way that protects you from coming up with a wrong conclusion (things such as having a control group and also random assignment all help to increase you internal validity). External validity on the other hand are things such as having a experiment which can be similar to what actually goes on in the world. Having a truth or reality component. For example just because people in a experiment acting in a certain way does that mean that the same goes for in the world when there are no experiments and they are not in a lab for example. Both components are necessary and neither alone is sufficient to tell us if the answer we got from the experiment is in fact correct. So the externalist says that your results must be able to apply to real world situations while the internalist says that you must have reason to defend that and that can come from a experimental design that has been conducted properly.