The Scientific Method-Is There Such A Thing?

Scientific method refers to the body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge-Wikipedia

The Scientific Method is the process of getting the same results from the same input-in predictable, repeatable ways. This is the basis of good, old fashioned Empirical Science. The kind of stuff that Galileo was doing when he was dropping hammers out of windows to see how fast they hit the ground. But like logic and reasoning, The Scientific Method just ain’t what it used to be.

The Scientific Method is now so well known that anyone can apply it to anything. Is there a god? Sure, we can prove it with the Scientific Method. Is there a god? No, we can prove it by using the Scientific Method. Is black really white? Of course-use the Scientific Method.

Around the turn of the twentieth century vast hordes of otherwise very bright people stopped working on hard science altogether-it was no longer the job of Physics to study real world phenomenon-they had to study stuff that may or may not exist at all, and is thus not really prone to being probed by the Scientific Method. Hit an atom and will it do the same thing every time? Depends. Maybe-Maybe Not. But at least this is still science.

Race is a matter where the Scientific Method used to rule the day-race was a matter of purely physical characteristics. When I was in school, lo these many years ago, there were only three races-Mogul, Negroid, and Caucasian. This was not a matter of personal choice and hyphen usage. Personally I think three are too many races at three-I’ve always been found of the Human Race tag myself.

Religion is another arena where there is no real use for the Scientific Method-though people have tried to study such silliness as the soul leaving the body and how effective prayer is when it comes to healing. Is Science itself a religion? We all worship at the feet of technology, don’t we?-even the Amish spend a good deal of their time using heavy machinery and riding around in cars and trucks.

As Douglas Adams so eloquently put it while talking about the Babel Fish in Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy-

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:

“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. Q.E.D.”

“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

“Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

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