randomWalks

CORRECT: THERE IS NO SINGLE "SCIENTIFIC METHOD." IT IS A MYTH

The rules of a science-fair typically require that students follow THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, or in other words, hypothesis-testing. The students must propose a hypothesis, test it by experiment, then reach conclusions. This supposedly is "The Scientific Method" used by all scientists.

Unfortunately this is wrong, and there is no single Scientific Method as such. Most scientists don't follow The Scientific Method in their daily work. "The Scientific Method" is a myth spread by school books. It is an extremely widespread myth, but this doesn't make it any more real. "The Scientific Method" is part of school and school books, and is not part of real science. Real scientists use a large variety of methods (perhaps call them "The Methods of Science" rather than "The Scientific Method.") Hypothesis-testing is one of these, but it certainly is not the only one, and it would be a mistake to elevate it above all others. We shouldn't force children to memorize it, and we shouldn't use it to exclude certain types of projects from science fairs.

There are many parts of science that cannot easily be forced into the "hypothesis/experiment/conclusion" mold. Astronomy is not an experimental science, and Paleontologists don't perform Paleontology experiments... so studying dinosaurs or stars must not be science? Or, if a scientist has a good idea for designing a new kind of measurment instrument (e.g. telescope), that certainly is "doing science", but where is The Hypothesis? Where is The Experiment? The Atomic Force Microscope (STM/AFM) revolutionized science. Yet wouldn't building such a device be rejected from many science fairs? It's not an experiment. The creators of the STM weren't doing science when they came up with that device? The Nobel prize committee disagrees.

Forcing kids to follow a caricature of scientific research distorts science, and it really isn't necessary in the first place.

RECURRING SCIENCE MISCONCEPTIONS IN K-6 TEXTBOOKS