How Non-scientists use the Scientific Method (2024)

Chapter 3: How Non-scientists use theScientific Method

The scientific method is used unconsciously by many people on a dailybasis, for tasks such as cooking and budgeting. The same elements present intraditional scientific inquiry are present in these everyday examples.Understanding how to apply the scientific method to these seeminglynon-scientific problems can be valuable in furthering one's career and inmaking health-related decisions.

Thischapter captures the essence of this course. Its goal is to explain the workings ofthe scientific method in a familiar context. The scientific method is not justfor scientists, but is for lawyers, business executives, advertising andmarketing analysts, and many others. We will discuss several examples andexplain how each is composed of the 5 scientific method elements.

Trial and Error

In the simplest terms, common uses of the scientific method involve trialand error. Consider automobile repair. Every weekend handyman, and every highschool student with a passing interest in autos knows about the method of trialand error. Your car is starting to run poorly, and you take matters into yourown hands in an attempt to fix it. The first step is to guess the nature of theproblem (your model). Acting on your hunch, you proceed to exchange a part,adjust a setting, or replace a fluid, and then see if the car runs better. Ifyour initial guess is incorrect and the car is not improved, you revise yourguess, make another adjustment, and once again test the car. With patience andenough guesses, this process will often result in a operable car. However,depending on one's expertise, quite a few trials and errors may be requiredbefore achieving anything remotely resembling success.

The methods scientists use to evaluate and improve models are very similarto the method of trial and error, and are the subject of this chapter. You maybe reluctant to think that the bungling process of trial and error istantamount to the scientific method, if only because science is so oftenshrouded in sophistication and jargon. Yet there is no fundamental difference.It might seem that scientists start with a more detailed understanding of theirproblem than the weekend car mechanic, but in fact most scientific inquirieshave humble and ignorant beginnings. Progress can occur just as assuredly viatrial and error as in traditional science, and the scientist isn't guaranteedof success any more than is the handyman: witness the failure to develop avaccine for AIDS. One of the themes of this book/course is that the scientificmethod is fundamentally the same as these simple exercises that most peopleperform many times in their lives.

Cooking from a recipe

Another activity familiar to all of us is cooking. Although the microwaveoven has reduced our dependency on preparing food for ourselves, many of usstill face the need to perform rudimentary culinary skills. The preparation ofmost dishes begins with a recipe - a list of ingredients and instructions formixing and cooking them. However, rare is the chef, whether budding oraccomplished, that follows the recipe to the letter and does not taste andmodify the dish during the cooking process. Modifications are attempted untilthe preparation meets the cook's approval, whence the food is served. Anysignificant alterations to the recipe may be adopted as permanentmodifications, to become part of the recipe itself in the future.

Although it is likely that all of us can identify with this example, it maybe less obvious how this example bears on our scientific method template.Returning to our template of 5 elements, we may dissect this example asfollows:

Scientific Method Template

Let's consider each of these elements again. In the cooking example, thegoal is to prepare a specific kind or quality of food dish. The model is simplythe recipe you use. It is a model because it is an abstraction of the actualprocess used in preparing the food; it is essential, because you could not planto prepare a specific kind of food dish without some guidance based on previouspreparations. Here, the data are simply your tastings of the dish before orafter it's finished. Evaluation is performed when you compare the actual taste(the data) to your idea of how the food should taste. If it tastes better (orworse) than you expect, you then try to figure out how to revise the recipeaccordingly. These revisions may be short-term (how you modify the recipe onthis particular occasion) or permanent changes to the written recipe.

The recipe example was chosen because it is commonplace. Yet it is extremelyapt. The procedures that scientists use may be slightly more stereotyped andformal than those of the ubiquitous household chef, but the way you work with arecipe, garment pattern, and any of a number of other daily experiences are notfundamentally different than the way a career scientist operates. Lab chemistryand molecular biology is filled with just as many miserable failures as are ournations kitchens, and in both cases the mistakes are used to fosterimprovements for the future.

Writing a News Story

A newspaper article about a murder starts as scribbled notes in thereporters notebook (first version of the model), then progresses to a rough draft(second version of the model), which is read by the editor and rewritten by thereporter to become the published article (third version of the model). Usingour template:

Scientific Method Template

Progress occurs as new drafts are written, in response to the reactions ofthe author and others (the data), and according to the author's intendedresponses (evaluation).

Designing Advertisem*nts

Advertising agencies use the scientific method explicitly to improve theeffectiveness of the ads they compose. Ads are models that manipulate consumerbehavior, and they are designed with a great deal of scientific input. Each adhas many dimensions that need be considered in detail, such as what headline touse, what size type to use, whether to use pictures, and how large the adshould be. All these questions can be answered using the principles of modelevaluation and improvement.

The most useful evaluation of ads comes from mail order returns. Todetermine whether an ad with a picture sells more gizmos than one of the samesize with only text, one simply has to gather some data: place one ad in halfthe copies of the February issue of a magazine, and the alternative ad in theremaining copies. Put different 800 phone numbers or P.O. Box numbers in thetwo ads, so you will know which ad generates more responses. The evaluation inthis example comes when you compare the responses generated by the two ads, andthe progress (model improvement) comes when future ads are changed to reflectthe ad that generated the most responses. Again, in template form:

Scientific Method Template

Corporate Finances

Tangible examples of the scientific method also abound in business. Considera corporation's financial planning. The most basic goal of the corporation isto survive economically. This goal requires a complicated, formal businessplan, to control and monitor the company's finances. Data accumulate during theyear in the form of actual revenues and expenditures, and these data arecompared to the model (the model is evaluated) to determine whether furtherchanges (revisions) are warranted:

Scientific Method Template

In-class examples:(1) Lamp switch; (2) Wheel of Fortune

The scientific method template can beapplied to any trial-and-error problem.The demonstrations used in class are but two of countless examples thatcan be offered. (You must attendthis lecture to obtain the information.)

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When it's not Science

Omit any of these 5 elements, and the scientific method cannot operate.Despite the ubiquity of illustrations of the scientific method in everydaylife, society is filled with examples that fall short of science in one or moresteps.

(1) Most prominently, religionis not science, nor does it pretend to be. Most religions are based on specificdoctrines and codes of conduct that followers agree to accept. There is noattempt to "improve" religion by changing the mores every few years andassessing the impact. (Anexception applies to the Hawaiian ruler Kamehameha II, who in 1819, abolishedthe nation’s traditional religion, apparently partly in response to thechanging economic and cultural conditions in Hawaii brought about by trade withEuropeans and the influx of missionaries.)

(2) Nearly all government agencies are established with some specific (orbroad) goal. They are also provided with a set of rules (a model) of how thatgoal should be pursued. But there is rarely a formal procedure for evaluatingwhether the goal is achieved, and there is almost never a procedure forimplementing a new model when the old one is deemed inadequate. Electedofficials can and so sometimes bring about change, and the political climatenow is more demanding of government accountability than in the past, butagencies generally are not established with the kind of built-inself-improvement system that underlies the scientific method. The federal andstate constitutions DO specify how to implement a new model - via amendments.

(3) Our criminal justice system comes fairly close to fulfilling all 5elements. The jury has the goal of discovering whether the defendant is guiltyor not guilty. This is the goal of deciding between the model advocated by thedefense, and the model advocated by the prosecution. Data are presented by thedefense and prosecution during the trial, and the jury evaluates the two modelsbased on that evidence. The verdict (guilty or not guilty) is the jury'sevaluation of which model best fits the data, with the proviso that in order toreturn a guilty verdict, the jury must find that the data presented supportsthis model "beyond a reasonable doubt." In terms of our discussion ofthe inevitable incompleteness of any model (chapter 5), the jury is instructedto interpret uncertainty so as to benefit the defense. Appeal of a verdictwould appear to be an example of revision, and it is. However, the types ofmodel revision permitted on appeal are somewhat restricted. For example, aftera defendant has been found guilty, it is very difficult to obtain a new trialand introduce into court factual evidence that exonerates him/her. Conversely,the prohibition against double jeopardy prevents the prosecution from reopeninga case after a "not guilty" verdict has been returned, even in lightof new and compelling data suggesting that the defendant was actually guilty.

(4) Technology does not imply science. Living in the U.S., we arecontinually bombarded with changes in technology - advances in computers,communications, household appliances, and transportation. Technology andscience are interrelated, and technology enables us to do better science, buttechnology is not science. Science is the process used to develop bettertechnology, whereas technology is simply the application of what has beenlearned with science. For example, using a computer to analyze data does notincrease the scientific content of the analysis; if the analysis was notscientific to begin with, a computer won't change that.

(5) Astrologers (psychics) claim to have ways of forecasting the future, ifonly in vague terms. However, their predictions are virtually never evaluatedby their clients, at least in a rigorous fashion. So the example of astrologypredictions contains goals and models, but the other elements are absent.

(6) Consider the differencebetween someone playing a card game versus a slot machine. Use of the slot machine is presumablyjust chance by pulling a lever or pushing a button, a fully automated process,so it does not allow any revision in how the game is played. Playing cards, however, can use thescientific method because there is a lot of strategy that can be adopted andaltered by the player.

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Copyright 1996-2000 Craig M. Pease & James J. Bull