The Scientific Method has us coming up with a hypothesis and then performing an experiment around that hypothesis to prove it to be true or false. If it is true, and the experiment comes out in your favor, the next step is to declare yourself to be correct, communicate your results, and it ends there.
This is absolutely not what the scientific method does.
The scientific method is about coming up with a hypothesis and then doing an experiment to
test that hypothesis. No single test is said to prove anything.
If the results of the test are inconsistent with the hypothesis then it is discarded - unless there was some flaw with the test.
If the test results are consistent with the hypothesis then no, you don’t declare yourself to be correct, you publish your method and your results
so that other people can check your work. If other people manage to reproduce your results then it builds confidence in your hypothesis. People may devise different ways of testing your hypothesis. All this serves to check your work. A theory is never said to be proven and the process never “ends”. But the more tests that are done and the more different ways of testing the hypothesis which gives results consistent with it, the more confidence there is in the theory which is built on the hypothesis.
Let’s take an example. Galileo had a hypothesis that objects fall at the same rate no matter what their mass is. To test that he (allegedly) dropped two cannonballs from the Leaning Tower of Pisa at the same time and observed that they hit the ground at the same time. Does that prove the hypothesis? Absolutely not. It builds confidence in it but it’s only one test. But the more tests people do with different pairs of objects the more confidence is built in the hypothesis. You could also vary the test - drop more than 2 objects, drop them from various heights. Drop them in different times of day or in different temperatures. And so on.
Now, let’s say one day someone drops a cannonball and a feather. Hang on a minute, what’s going on here? The cannonball falls a lot faster than the feather. Galileo was wrong!
So what happens then in science is we look at the original hypothesis - is it completely wrong or does it just need modification? In this case, modification. Earth has an atmosphere which means there is air resistance which needs to be taken into account. For cannonballs the effect is negligible, for feathers it is not. So now we have to say that objects in a gravitational field fall at the same rate if no other forces are acting on them. In effect this means that on earth objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum. You can find a video of a Brian Cox show in which they drop a bowling ball and a feather in a large vacuum chamber and show they fall at the same rate.
This is how science works. Hypotheses are tested, methods and results are published. Other people peer review what you did, repeat your tests or devise their own and the results can either see theories modified or even abandoned if they are shown conclusively to be wrong.
The issue with the method articulated on here - proceeding by personal enquiry alone - is that you miss the vital step of publishing your method and results. You miss the important feedback of peer review. You are not checking each other’s work. So you believe in a FE because of The Bishop Experiment. But you have provided no evidence for having even done it, you haven’t published details about your method or your results. Yes, I could do my own tests but I can’t exactly repeat what you did or know if my results are consistent with yours. And what if I did my own test which I declare similar enough to yours based on what I know of your test. What if I get different results? What happens then? How do we know who is wrong?
The principle of checking things out for yourself is sound up to a point but we have to consider our own limitations in understanding or ability to do tests.
I’d say the heart of the scientific method is peer review and this is a step you miss and it leads you to wrong conclusions.
Your shows a massive misunderstanding of what the scientific method is.