What is the scientific method?
By Patricia Ryaby Backer June
9, 1998, Revised
Note: This section was drawn from Rutherford & Ahlgren's (1990) book Science
for all Americans, which is a publication from the AAAS.
According to Rutherford and
Ahlgren (1990), scientific inquiry is not composed of a fixed set of steps that
scientists always follow all of the time: it is not a single path that leads
them unerringly to scientific knowledge. However, there are consistent features
of scientific thinking that are consistent among scientists.
In the scientific method,
the validity of scientific claims is settled by referring to observations of
phenomena (accurate data). Data is obtained by observations and measurements
taken in situations that range from natural settings (such as a forest) to
completely contrived ones) such as the laboratory). "Scientists observe
passively (earthquakes, bird migrations), make collections (rocks, shells), and
actively probe the world (as by boring into the earth's crust or administering
experimental medicines)" (pp. 5-6).
A key to the objectivity of
the data is the notion of random selection. The classic, "pure"
research design is the double-blind study in which subjects (whether they are
plants, animals, or human beings) are assigned randomly to both the
experimental group and the control group--this constitutes the first
"blind" in the double blind. In order to further guarantee against
bias in the experiment, the researchers themselves don't know which of the
subjects are in the experimental or control group, that information is
controlled by an external party--this constitutes the second blind in a double
blind study.
Many times it is not
practical to use a double-blind approach although scientists still attempt to
use randomization to control for differences among the subjects. Some studies
attempt to study the entire population (a population is the entire group that
you are studying--if you were studying the effect of fertilizer on roses, all
the roses would be the population) rather than taking a sample of it; in this
way, you can make conclusions based upon the entire group. [For an example of a
non-randomized study, read the article by Dan Horvitz, entitled Pseudo
opinion polls: SLOP or useful data.]
Although scientists have
the freedom to come up with any sort of hypothesis or theory, any hypothesis or
theory might be subjected to a rigorous examination based on the principles of
logical reasoning. This is done to test the validity of arguments by applying
certain criteria of inference, demonstration, and common sense. The
"process of formulating and testing hypotheses is one of the core
activities of scientists. To be useful, a hypothesis should suggest what
evidence would support it and what evidence would refute it. A hypothesis that
cannot in principle be put to the test of evidence may be interesting, but it
is not scientifically useful" (pp. 6-7).
After taking observations
and testing their hypotheses, scientists attempt to explain the
"observations of phenomena by inventing explanations for them that use, or
are consistent with, currently accepted scientific principles. Such
explanations-theories-may be either sweeping or restricted, but they must be
logically sound and incorporate a significant body of scientifically valid observations"
(p. 7).
The scientific method
requires that rigorous testing must be undertaken at every step of the process
with the key being an objective observation f the natural environment.
Hypotheses are tested by subjecting them to data acquisition and observations;
if there is sufficient evidence based upon the data, then the hypothesis
becomes a theory. Theories must fit the facts that have been uncovered but they
should also have a predictive power--that is, they should explain and fit
future observations.
Why was the scientific method so attractive to people solving
non-scientific problems?
In their history of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, Morrell and Thackray (1981,
p. 32) noted that science became consolidated as "the dominant mode of
cognition of industrial society." They further noted that this was because
science was considered to be a value-neutral domain of knowledge--apoltical,
non-theological, universal, and objective--unlike any other (Stepan &
Gilman, 1993). The result of this perspection was that science and the
scientific method became the unbiased and non-political way to solve problems.
Ellul (1964) traced the
dominating influence of the scientific method to the 18th century. At that
time, he believes, there was a breakdown of medieval society that caused a
shift in perception that took place all over
This perspective shift was
based in the belief that the scientific method was the best mechanism for
solving problems and that reason must be applied to every facet of human life.
This was the advent of mechanistic thinking which included new machines--mechanical
looms, reapers, threshing machines--and new machine-like social
organizations--the factory system, bureaucratic armies, state administration by
rational bureaucratic principles, and systematized monetary techniques.
According to Stepan and
Gilman (1993), in the period between 1870 and 1920, the consensus about science
was strong. Theological, ethical, and political approaches to knowledge were
reduced in authority with science becoming pre-eminent. According to
Glendinning (1990), we still live in the 20th century under the system that
they established. This is the reason why most Americans and Westerners look
first to a technical solution or "fix" to any problem--it is a
mechanistic, technological progress that we seek in society, not generally a humanistic
one.
In the Western world, we
embrace progress as essential for our existence. To us, progress is the
experience of time as linear, as "a ribbon stretching into the future,
along which one progresses" (Hall, cited in Glendinning, 1990)
Mumford (1986, cited in
Glendinning, 1990) wrote that society believes in
"the assumption that human improvement would
come about more rapidly, indeed almost automatically, through devoting all our
energies to the expansion of scientific knowledge and to technological
invention; that traditional knowledge and experience, traditional forms and
values, acted as a brake upon such expansion and invention; and that since the
order embodied by the machine was the highest type of order, no brakes of any
kind were desirable....Progress was accordingly measured by novelty, constant
change, and mechanistic difference, not by continuity and human
improvement."
Methodological criticism of the scientific method
Scientists generally
believe that the success of science is due to the application of the scientific
method. Successful scientists are led by their underlying assumption to
conclude that their success roves that they have followed this method. Any
criticism of the scientific method is seen as uninformed and usually is
ignored. Part of the justification for this dismissal of criticism lies in
another fundamental belief of scientists--that science is self-correcting
(Bauer, 1992).
Stephen Brush (1974), a
historian of science, wrote an article that called into questions many of the
fundamental underpinnings of the scientific method. He found that historical
research into science casts serious doubt on the notions of objectivity,
rationality, scientific method, and open-minded inquiry.
Winner (1990) notes that
there are many myths about science that help science maintain its position in
society. Among the myths are:
"that science proceeds along the same course
regardless of who pays the bills
that objectivity is both an unambiguous, desirable
and easily established condition of scientific research
that there is a "reality out there"
which science "discovers"
that science is essentially free of the influences
of gender, racism, social class, and other pungent cultural influences"
(p. 13).
Bauer (1992, p. 23)
describes an over-reliance on theory as being evidence of the problems with the
scientific method. According to Bauer, you can find many examples where facts
and discoveries were discounted because they did not fit with accepted theory
(including the discoveries of Hermann Helmholtz and Max Planck, Joseph Lister
in medicine. Louis Pasteur, Gregor Mendel's observations of genetics, etc).. He
cites a statement by Sir Arthur Eddington who said "it is also a good rule
not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put
forward until they have been confirmed by theory." What Eddington means is
that old theories should not be discarded, despite new evidence to the
contrary, unless a new theory is put forth superseding the old.
The premise is that
scientific research is reliable because it is carried out methodically.
Therefore, any new bit of science has claim the authority of the scientific
method as its foundation. Bauer (1992, p. 48) asks some thought-provoking
questions.
"Once-accepted
but now superseded scientific views were arrived at, as were the now-accepted
ones, supposedly by exercise of the scientific method. Does that mean the
method was applied incorrectly or inadequately in the past? In that case, would
we claim that scientists now are able to be more objective and more precise in
formulating hypotheses than were scientists in the past?"
Instead, Bauer suggests
that the scientific method is a chimera. Objectivity in science results not
from the accumulation of the individual objectivities of scientists but from
the fact that the scientific community works through consensus building. This
consensus building is the actuality of the scientific method.
Thomas Kuhn (1970)
critiqued another aspect of the scientific method--the objectivity of the scientists.
Kuhn demonstrated, through his research, that science does not work logically
and impersonally; rather he found that scientists brought their expectations
and personal beliefs into their work. Kuhn found that the actual practice of
science does not illustrate application of the scientific method. Instead, Kuhn
believed that scientists and their research efforts were most affected by
various means of socialization factors--commonly education and apprenticeship.
Through this manner, established scientists incorporated younger generations of
scientists into the scientific community thereby passing accepted beliefs and
theories to a new generation.
This also brings up the
question as to what degree objectivity is possible? For many scientists, the belief
is objectivity is a fundamental foundation on which they rely for their
philosophical existence. This belief in the immutability of hard data anchors
science in reality. Scheffler (1967, pp. v-vi), a philosopher of science,
wondered about the consequences of objectivity coming under attack.
"That
the idea of objectivity has been fundamental to science is beyond
question....The extreme alternative that threatens is the view that theory is
not controlled by data, but the data are manufactured by theory; that rival
hypotheses cannot be rationally evaluated, there being no neutral court of
observational appeal nor any shared stock of meanings; that scientific change
is a product not of evidenced appraisal and logical judgment, but of intuition,
persuasion, and conversion; that reality does not constrain the thought of the
scientists but is rather itself a projection of that thought."
Is the scientific method is so flawed, then why isn't is discarded?
Some philosophers of
science (Bauer, 1992; Harding, 1993) believe that the myth of the scientific
method is difficult to eliminate because of the position of science in our
society. Over the last few centuries, the authority of science has superseded
the authority of religion and tradition because science offered the promise of
more certain knowledge about the world. If science is proven to variable and
unreliable, then "science is in essence a false god, and, moreover, is
inferior to the God on whom science turned its back. Human beings, after all,
do want to be certain about fundamental things, and religion offers (or used to
offer) such certainty. So there is reluctance to accept that the method is a
myth" (Bauer, 1992, p. 61).
Cultural criticism of the scientific method
Introduction
"It
is true that in modern Western culture, the theoretical models propounded by
the professional scientists do, to some extent, become the intellectual
furnishings of a very large sector of the population....But the layman's ground
for accepting the models proposed by the scientists is often no different from
the young African villager's ground for accepting the models propounded by one
of his elders. In both cases the propounders are deferred to as the accredited
agents of tradition....For all the apparent up-to-dateness of the content of
his world-view, the modern Western layman is rarely more 'open' or scientific
in his outlook than is the traditional African villager" (Horton, 1993)
Harding (1993, p. 17)
points out that the scientific method is supposed to maximize objectivity
"by guarding against the intrusion of obscuring and distorting social
values into the results of research." Besides being skeptical of the idea
of objectivity, Harding also questions the process of generating the research
questions themselves. She believes that since racist and Eurocentric political
concerns shape the questions that science asks, then the results themselves
are, by connection, also racist and Eurocentric.
Harding (1993) asserts that
science retains much of its early, authoritarian elements left after its
battles with organized religion. These elements encourage science to adopt a
religious tone and attitude, "both toward the 'pure nature' it observes
and toward its own activities, that rewards fanaticism and the idea of 'true
believers' who have a pipeline to the one true story about the world. It
frequently exhibits a paranoia about the possibility of 'outsiders' influencing
science, conceptualizing them as 'crackpots' and megalomaniacs all too
manipulative in their appeal to the ignorant masses, who are imagined as all
too ready to swarm up and overwhelm fragile reason" (p. 19).
Eurocentric criticism of
Western Science
Science in
According to traditional
Western scientists, the roots of science and the scientific method is in
"Albert Einstein one remarked that there is
no difficulty in understanding why Indian or
However,
"Suppose we erect a classification of four
pigeonholes, science vertically on the left and technology vertically on the
right, and let the upper boxes represent direct historical genesis while the
lower ones represent subsequent reinforcement. Then taking the upper left-hand
compartment first, the contribution of the Greeks will have the greatest share,
for Euclidean deductive geometry and Ptolemaic astronomy, with all they imply,
were undoubtedly the largest factor in the birth of the 'new, or experimental.
science'....In the upper right hand compartment the situation is entirely
different, for in technology Asian influences in and before the Renaissance
(especially Chinese) ere legion..."
Feminist Criticism of
the Scientific Method
Science, by use of the
scientific method, uses a reductionistic approach to knowledge. This
reductionistic approach is one in which the whole is broken up into little
parts; it is the belief that isolating and dissecting bits of nature will allow
one to understand the whole. This context, in which the scientific method is
used, implies that nature can be disassembled and reassembled under man's
control--this view is fundamental to a masculine, analytical approach. This
approach denies the innate relatedness of systems; it avoids the truth that the
whole possesses more than the sum of its parts. Critics believe that science
suffers from a myopia in methods which is based on the masculine ideal.
According to Shepherd
(1993), reductionism has led to spectacular discoveries and advances in
scientific knowledge. However, this approach is not effective for all types of
problems, especially not for problems that are not specialized. Shepherd cites
the following problems as particularly unresponsive to the reductionist
approach: curing cancer, predicting earthquakes, aspects of animal behavior,
and developmental biology.
Shepherd (1993) believes
that the inclusion of the feminine into science will allow a vision of
wholeness. She interprets a feminine perspective of science to be one of relatedness--this
"means looking at the relationship between things, viewing things in
context, seeing the connections that link everything together, stepping back to
see the big picture--and even weaving together work and personal life. In doing
so, we find the whole gives meaning to the parts" (pp. 228-229).
A holistic approach to
scientific investigation would marry the current reductionist approach of the
scientific method with the relatedness approach of the feminine. This would
allow scientists to see each level in the development of a mechanism--the
collective properties are generally ignored and dismissed in a reductionist
approach. According to Shepherd (1993, p. 229) "we need the analytical
process to help us disentangle the threads, while always keeping one eye on the
overall pattern to see what our meddling is doing. As in any endeavor, there is
always the question of balance and perspective."
Sylvia Pollack (1989), a
professor at the medical school of the University of Washington gives a
practical perspective on this duality of approaches.
"But what I work with is so complex, I
wrestle all the time between being reductionist, which I see as being quite
masculine, and being holistic or integrative, which I see as more feminine. I
know I'm not going to get anywhere if I'm not reductionist. I've got to chop it
into little pieces and look at it. At least I always try to remember we're
looking at the pieces so we'll understand the whole system. Since I'm
interested in how blood cells form, anything that happens in that process is
fair game"
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