Scientific discovery and the benefits of research and development. Research projects available in Spatial Sciences. Acquiring research related information. Designing a research project - literature reviews, critical appraisal of previous work, formulating a research project and hypothesis generation, the scientific method, elements of good research proposals, using computers in research, LaTeX document processing, windedit, PCTeX, bibtex, style files, inclusion of graphics. Thinking critically about research in science. Empirical Science - induction, deduction, verification, theory dependence of observation, the complexity of making theoretical choices, falsification as an approach. New Approach to Science- paradigms of science, lies, deception and fraudin research. Numerical data analysis - data types, descriptive statistics, probability distributions, precision and accuracy, error analysis, sampling theorems, significant and insignificant figures, strategies for correct data analysis. |