Scientific Explanation Essay

An explanation is one which is ‘rooted' or firmly embedded in psychology and in reality. An explanation is one which should make something vivid to the person inquiring. A young child asking why the sky is blue or why water freezes cannot be satisfied with an answer couched in scientific polysyllables that he does not understand. To be effective, an explanation must be one which is easy to understand. On the other hand, a proper explanation must rest on truth - that is, it must refer to reality. A good explanation is one which fulfils or satisfies the particular need of the inquirer and answers only that.

Let us take for example a priest enquiring about a robbery seeking an explanation from the robber. If he asks: ‘Why did you rob the bank?', and the robber replied, ‘Because that's where the money is.' This explanation, for the priest's purposes, as per the priest's question is not an explanation fitting to him. The

The three essential aims of science are prediction, control and explanation. However, the greatest of these is scientific explanation. Scientific explanations are nothing but tentative proposals. They are offered in hope of capturing the best outlook on the matter. Scientific explanations however, are subject to evaluation as well as modification. They are valid deductive arguments whose conclusion is the event to be explained. The Scientific mode of explanation is more properly named the nomological-deductive type. It is also known as the DN account. This means that the explanation is deduced from law-like statements (from the Greeknomos= a law). For example, there is the law, or universal hypothesis, that whenever the Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon there is an eclipse of the Moon. Thus any particular eclipse may be explained as an instance of that general law. The general rule that provides the explanation is strengthened if it can be shown to be consistent with a more fundamental