Design Process and the Scientific Method

One of the blog questions I have been issued over the past couple of weeks caught my attention more than others. 'If drawing/modelling in design process is about testing and hypothesizing, is it like or unlike scientific method?' 

Now this question for me is a pretty straight forward yes. I see the surveying and analysis of a site as the same thing as researching previous scientific theory and method before framing your experiment or thesis' hypothesis. Hypothoses are not plucked from thin air, and neither should concept be, they must be informed by previous analysis, be that cultural or ecological (landscape) or quantifiable or theoretical in the case of science.
 
A scientific hypothesis can be supported or refuted by experimentation or observation, and is the place where all scientists start before planning the execution of an experiment. This is much the same as the design brief, which is carried out before the pen hits the paper. The design brief is also met (or not) after rigorous experimentation (drawings, computer and material modelling and testing) and observation (of similar spatial arrangements or case studies). Also hypotheses can be disproven, but not proven to be true, which gives us our first difference between scientific and design method. We must always try and meet our design brief or 'prove' it, as it is the framework for a sucessful design, but no design could ever be thought of as perfect by everyone, whereas if a scientific hypothesis is disproven then most intelligent people will accept the data, if it is sufficient in quantity.

With design method there is a circularity between drawing and modelling and revisiting the design brief. The design brief informs the design or experimentation which in turn can subtly alter the brief. Scientific theorum can be looked at in the same manner, each supported or disproven hypothesis will inform the next experimental hypothesis in the same field and so on, until rather than a finalised design, there is enough data to form a theorum.      

The main difference between the scientific and design method is that good scientists don't mind too much if a theory is disproved as this gives the opportunity to retest and hypothesise to work towards the ultimate scientific law. I don't know of many designers who would wish for their landscape or building to be disproved or told that it did not meet the design brief.

As mentioned in an above paragraph if the design brief is as a hypothesis, whether the resulting building is exeptional or a failure, much like the support of disproff of scientific hypothesis, it can then inform future 'experiments' or designs helping the design profession move forward from outdated design trend into a new, maybe more scientific future?