esrosedotblog

METHOD ACTING

When I was a young man, perhaps even in high school, much was made of

The Scientific Method

It was taught as a basic truth of adult life.

Period.

There was no nonsense about it. It was a precept that we were made to believe in.

Another period.

Just to review:

The scientific method is the process by which scientists, collectively and over time, endeavor to construct an accurate (that is, reliable, consistent and non-arbitrary) representation of the world.

Recognizing that personal and cultural beliefs influence both our perceptions and our interpretations of natural phenomena, we aim through the use of standard procedures and criteria to minimize those influences when developing a theory.

As a famous scientist once said, "Smart people (like smart lawyers) can come up with very good explanations for mistaken points of view."

In summary, the scientific method attempts to minimize the influence of bias or prejudice in the experimenter when testing an hypothesis or a theory.

The scientific method has four steps

Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.

Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

So, where does the Scientific Method stand today?

I never hear it mentioned!

I am out of touch.

Is it taught?

Is it referred to?

Does anyone give a shit?

Look, there has been religious and other mumbo jumbo for ever.

Today, though, it seems absolutely fashionable to rely only on the intuition or received 'knowledge'.

Nothing is questioned.

I used to have a friend; a buddy in my first job. He was actually a mentor.

We worked in an Engineering Department of a large company.

Yes, me.

When people asserted a position on a certain question he would always ask for their fact base.

Then, he would ask if the facts given or alluded to were from a 'competent authority'.

Somewhere in there he would work in The Scientific Method.

It would drive people fucking nuts.

But he was right.

Most people were flying by the seat of someone else's pants; not even their own.

Or they were making it up as they went along.

I don't know why or how all this came to mind but I googled 'scientific method' and came up with a lot of hits.

So it must be alive and well. Or maybe these are the archives. The old musty records of a used-to-be world where science was honored.