The scientific method is a systematic practice for separating what citta actually observes from what it wishes, fears, or expects to observe — a rigorous protocol for minimizing the distortions that afflict all unexamined perception. Hypothesis testing, controlled comparison, peer review, and the falsifiability criterion are each mechanisms for protecting against the mind's tendency to find what it is already looking for. The Sutras' own insistence on direct perception (pratyakṣa) as the primary pramāṇa reflects the same epistemological priority: what is actually observed over what is merely inherited or inferred.
Patan