method of science in the middle of the century, The

School Science and Mathematics, Nov 2001 by Oliver, J Steve, Nichols, B Kim

But then he posed the question which is still THE question. "Why, then, do we continue to talk and write about the scientific method?" (p. 459). Why then do we...? A review ofthe literature for the 50 or more years following this article will show ongoing calls for the teaching of the scientific method. Is it only McMullen's initial assumption that is at fault and thus responsible for the conclusion we draw? That is part of the problem. But perhaps the idea of teaching toward the scientific method, or the nature of science, or the accomplishment of inquiry is an aspect of science teaching that will always be running out in front and moving away no matter how we approach.

McMullen suggested this as well. I believe that one of the reasons for our continued interest in this subject is that we are not satisfied with the results we have achieved with our pupils in arriving at understanding in this area of thinking. Perhaps these unsatisfactory results are partly due to the fact that, as science teachers, we have emphasized the efficacy of this method in solving science problems, but have not generally extended it to the solution of problems outside of the area of science. (p. 459)

Like John Dewey and others, McMullen believed that science could be applied to all aspects of life as a problem solving device and as a means for developing understanding.

Now jump five years ahead to 1953. The big war is now 8 years behind the public, but a smaller and less determinate war has changed the public's opinion of many things. Science educators, however, were still talking about the scientific method. In the fifth issue of 1953, Charles A. Compton of Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts wrote "On the Scientific Method." But clearly the 5 years since McMullen's publication was a period of constant expounding on the importance of the scientific method.

In a recent article in SSM reference was made to the "method of procedure called the scientific method." This article is not alone, for almost every month of every year someone writes, as I am now, on the scientific method. (p. 372)

One of the current qualms about the scientific method has been the perceived discrepancy between the scientific method and the act of inquiry in research science. But like so many of the topics, this was a concern in 1953 as well. Compton described the problem this way:

The history of science will demonstrate by hundreds of examples how very over-simplified, if not wrong, the common idea about the science method is. Intuition, mistakes, trial and error, prejudice, and emotion, all play a bigger role in the history of science than all the scientific method put together.

Even chance plays a very important role. (p. 372) Toward the end of the article, Compton summed up many ofthe current concerns about the scientific method.

Let us be honest, both with ourselves and with those who may have a chance to read or to hear what we think. The scientific method is not short, nor is it a definite pattern of steps, nor is it easy. It is a mass of people, working in many different fields and in many different ways; it is a mass of mistakes and errors in observation and logic, each hopefully less glaring than the last. These errors that are so much a part of the progress of science mean that scientific method cannot be applied to just any field; in fact, there are few fields of human endeavor in which such errors are even permissible. (p. 373)