According To Oxford English Dictionary
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Edition, 1989), empiric is derived from the ancient Greek for experience, ἐμπειρία, which is ultimately derived from ἐν "in" + πείρα "trial, experiment". Therefore, empirical data is information that is derived from the trials and errors of experience. In this way, the empirical method is similar to the experimental method. However, an essential difference is that in an experiment the different "trials" are strictly manipulated so that an inference can be made as to causation of the observed change that results. This contrasts with the empirical method of aggregating naturally occurring data.
Adding further confusion is another connotation of empiric. Strict empiricists are those who derive their rules of practice entirely from experience, to the exclusion of philosophical theory.
The OED further states that an empiric is "one who, either in medicine or in other branches of science, relies solely upon observation and experiment" . In this case, an empiricist can be someone who conducts an experiment but without using a hypothesis to guide the process, i.e., strictly by the trial-and-error method. This is counter to one of the main tenets of the scientific method, that of the hypothetico-deductive method, where the manipulation of the variable in an experiment is dictated by the hypothesis being tested.
Read more about this topic: Empirical Method
Famous quotes containing the words oxford, english and/or dictionary:
“During the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.”
—Bernard Lewis, U.S. Middle Eastern specialist. Islam and the West, ch. 8, Oxford University Press (1993)
“I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“If someday I make a dictionary of definitions wanting single words to head them, a cherished entry will be “To abridge, expand, or otherwise alter or cause to be altered for the sake of belated improvement, one’s own writings in translation.””
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)