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Re: Back to basics – testing your hypothesis.
Posted by:
dcarpenter (IP Logged)
Date: January 11, 2007 11:38AM
In expanding on the thinking associated with reading these posts, I am reminded of a few issues that I feel are important and seem to be reoccurring themes in my experience.
You are correct. Not every fire incident can be covered in a single or even multiple books. The circumstances/conditions are different in every fire since compartmentation, fuels, etc. are different in very fire. But what is the same, is how the fire is required to behave in each fire. Thus, fundamentals of fire behavior become important because they can be applied to every fire. Relying on experience without the any way to quantify how good that experience is will ultimately be unreliable. To advance this profession, we must think long term on how we are going to educate investigators in these fundamental. Otherwise, no significant advancement of this profession will occur.
A an aside, while consensus is important with respect to the acceptance of theories (well established fundamental knowledge) based on scientific findings, it is not part of the testing of hypotheses using the scientific method. Just because eight investigators came to the same conclusion does not make it valid under the scientific method. Although, this seems to happen frequently in my experience. In the same vain, just because eight investigators agree does not make them all correct or all wrong. It is the scientific basis for conclusions that is the appropriate assessment of the validity of a determination based on the scientific method.
Douglas J. Carpenter, MScFPE, CFEI, PE, FSFPE
Vice President & Principal Engineer
Combustion Science & Engineering, Inc.
8940 Old Annapolis Road, Suite L
Columbia, MD 21045
(410) 884-3266
(410) 884-3267 (fax)
www.csefire.com