Scientific Method 101

In my home state of Kansas, the evolution debate is heating up again. Mike Hendricks of the KC Star gives a helpful little primer on the scientific method before the debate gets too hot:

"Yes, it's that time of year when a lot of fourth-graders are planning their first science projects.

At our house, we're conducting experiments on ice. Which substance is the most effective in melting ice cubes arranged carefully in identical cereal bowls? Kitty litter, play sand or salt?

I'd tell you, but it doesn't matter. What does is that we're learning the scientific method. My daughter and her classmates know a hypothesis is not a wild notion. It's an educated guess.

And they've learned that the only way to test the validity of a hypothesis is through experimentation and evaluation of evidence, not guesswork or personal belief.

Fourth-graders get it. A few of them even understand that hypotheses are the building blocks of scientific theories. Too bad some adults don't have a clue.

Get a load of this Associated Press story out of Georgia:

ATLANTA — A state lawmaker Thursday introduced legislation designed to prevent the theory of evolution from being taught in Georgia's classrooms.

The bill by Republican Rep. Ben Bridges requires only “scientific fact” be taught in public schools — in his mind ruling out the theory of evolution.

“It's in the book that it's a theory, but these teachers teach it like it's a fact,” he said. “Let's teach them the truth or don't teach them anything.”

My hypothesis: It's been awhile since this Bridges dude helped with a school science project. Otherwise, he'd know that much of science hinges on theories.

Theories based on hard facts, but theories all the same."

It's interesting to note that the "teaching as scientific fact" argument is also invoked by leftish academics, pointing to the use of "scientific fact" to justify slavery, eugenics, imperialism, patriarchy (Harvard President Larry Summers as the recent example of this) and more. The examples aren't always quite as evil: qualitative sociologists will tell you, correctly, that their quantitative counterparts and, worst of all, economists, label their research methods as more scientific and, therefore, more legitimate and valuable.

Of course, criticizing these uses of "science" is justified, but they often miss the point that Hendrick's fourth grader understands: the problem with these claims is not that they are science, but that they are not scientific. Without getting into a lengthy discussion of the philosophy of science, the defining feature of the scientific method is falsifiability - the notion that "truth" is always contingent on evidence. It may be the case at any given time and place that much of "science," as an institution, is in fact "unscientific."

Evolution is accepted as a scientific theory to the extent that it's consistent with evidence. Creationism is rejected as a scientific theory to the extent that it's fundamental propositions reject the very necessity of evidence and falsifiability. If we give up the principles of the scientific method because of the way "science," as an institution, has been misused throughout history, we may end up losing a lot more than we intended.