Excerpt
First and foremost, science is a kind of human activity. So you could say science is what scientists do. So, it makes sense to consider what some recognized scientists actually do. It is popularly believed that scientists are people who gather data, form hypotheses and then test them. We visualize scientists as working in labs filled with test tubes, and or electronic devices, used to obtain data and test theories. But Einstein has been recognized as one of the great scientists of the twentieth century and this does not describe his work. He did none of this. He gathered no data. He did not work in a laboratory. He was of course, familiar with experimental results gathered by other physicists but he didn’t form hypotheses about the data they gathered and then test them. He developed mathematical theories to explain the results of some experimental results that did not seem consistent with current theory. These theories were not derived from the known data as some suppose all scientists do. These theories, such as Special Relativity and his theory of photoelectric emission, were products of his creative imagination. The theories were tested by other physicists in various ways. His work style was similar to that of many of the other great theorists of his day such as Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg. Very few physicists follow in the footsteps of Einstein or Pauli today, however, as solitary thinkers. Most science today is performed by teams, not individuals. As the questions change, and technology advances, the ways of doing scientific research change also.

Charles Darwin was a scientist, a very good one in fact. He gathered a massive amount of data in his study of living organisms. Examination of his results led him to conjecture that the many different species of animals we see today resulted from an evolution process driven by the process he called natural selection. He realized, and stated in his book on the Origin of Species, that there were problems with his theory. His test of the theory consisted of comparing his fossil data with geologic information but many discrepancies were found. So this preliminary test did not prove his so-called theory of evolution was correct. In some minds the proper way to do science is to collect data, form an hypothesis and then test the hypothesis. If it fails the test reject it. What Darwin did is an example of the fallacy in that simple model of scientific method. Darwin did not follow that simple prescription. Charles Darwin was convinced that his theory was correct and although preliminary tests seemed to indicate it was incorrect he was convinced that eventually it would be confirmed. Other naturalists also believed in the theory and continued to gather data and work on refining the theory over the next hundred years. As this activity continued confidence in the correctness of his ideas grew until virtually all scientists accepted it as correct.