Do you have the definition of 'scientific method'?

TheLightWithin said:
Can you be more precise?
All I would point out is that the existence of advanced technology shows that the scientific method allows us to know what works.
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I think that you must have forgotten the many failures.
The list is long but I will mention just two....
The Challenger disaster.
The Hubble's original mirror failure.
TheLightWithin said:
If they use the scientific method
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So, if you are told that a development was produced by the scientific method throughout, then you will believe in it?
 
TheLightWithin said:
What is a "truth pill"?
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There are two basic kinds of truth pills, all for delivery where belief or acceptance is required. These can be enhanced in many different ways.

1. State a fact that is generally known to be true. Get the audience 'nodding their heads' in agreement, then deliver the claim that the audience need to accept.

2. Tell the audience that the thing for sale was researched and developed using the very best of scientific method.
TheLightWithin said:
Which people?

I don't conduct research, though I was seriously considering a PhD in clinical or counseling psychology many years ago. I ultimately did not do so, which I sort of regret and sort of don't.
I personally found the research aspect tedious and preferred the clinical application, which was one of the reasons I did not pursue it as intensely as I once thought I would - once I knew about the steps involved. I admire the logic and philosophical natures of the method/methods, but data collection and analysis seemed tedious to me.
When I was in graduate school on the master's level (a clinical counseling program - though I was also briefly in another social science program) the professors hammered away about research research research research research... we read a lot of it.🤓😵😵‍💫
I was supposed to assist another more senior graduate student (doc level) in a clinical research project that involved her supposedly using some groundbreaking kind of qualitative research. I no longer recall why I ended up not being one of her assistants. I do remembering helping someone else type up a lot of data, and then helping yet someone else where the task ended up being more secretarial than research based - so it wasn't going to help me in my formulation of a research question to study for my doctorate, which was kind of the point in these assistant tasks.

If I knew what I knew now, I could have more easily identified a useful research area, something like intelligence tests or diagnostic tests and their validity or something. But I feel like they hammered away at the methodological abstractions and not the applications enough for students who were relative beginners. Many of us did not have that much undergraduate preparation in research design.
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Counselling can be a very valuable service, but psychology is one of the more inexact sciences.

I would never call myself a scientist, rather than that I would offer what opinion or fact that I can towards any conversation, but debaters who are claiming that they have a degree, or that they are a scientist in order to be believed........that is a perfect example of a truth pill.
 
badger said:
1. State a fact that is generally known to be true.
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Ok
badger said:
Get the audience 'nodding their heads' in agreement, then deliver the claim that the audience need to accept.
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Ok...?
Some audiences, and/or some members of audiences, would just stand and listen without nodding or anything else.
So what happens then? If you have a cold audience that just keeps waiting for you to deliver?
badger said:
2. Tell the audience that the thing for sale was researched and developed using the very best of scientific method.
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Ok, and then what?
 
TheLightWithin said:
I need to ask you to clarify - what case are you making?
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I'm not making a case! I was answering your question which required examples of where scientific development had failed. I picked the first two out of many that would serve.

The title 'scientific method' produces nothing.... Ideas, researches, scrutiny and developments are their own titles.
 
TheLightWithin said:
I don't know what this means. What does it mean to "believe in" a product?
It might be useful?
It might? What product is it?
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Well of course you wouldn't, but I told you (say) that a product had been intensely tested and many good reviews seen, then you would have a very good idea indeed.
 
TheLightWithin said:
Ok

Ok...?
Some audiences, and/or some members of audiences, would just stand and listen without nodding or anything else.
So what happens then? If you have a cold audience that just keeps waiting for you to deliver?

Ok, and then what?
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Then your particular 'sell' has not worked.
The audience does not believe in you.
The audience has not failed, you will have.

But if you can't see what a truth-pill is by now then you probably never will.
 
badger said:
I'm not making a case!
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I meant the overall case for this thread. I'm lost and I don't know what you are trying to suggest or possibly convince?
I mean I feel like you and I are debating about something and I have to say, I'm not quite clear what precisely we are debating about.
badger said:
but I told you (say) that a product had been intensely tested and many good reviews seen, then you would have a very good idea indeed.
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Sure.
Not sure what that has to with the scientific method or its inadequacy (which is what i think you are trying to say?)
badger said:
Customer (or potential customer) reviews are what researchers would seek in order to develop products, services, ideas.
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Ok, if they do that, then good
badger said:
Then your particular 'sell' has not worked.
The audience does not believe in you.
The audience has not failed, you will have.
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Where did the idea of failure come in?
I'm just saying audiences just don't always take bait and nod along.
I didn't say anything about failure at all.
Again, I feel like we're debating about something but I'm not quite clear what it is.
badger said:
But if you can't see what a truth-pill is
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No, I am not interested in "pills" of this kind.
badger said:
by now then you probably never will.
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Uh, okay? Good?
I still feel I've somehow gone down a rabbit hole and I don't know what the point is.
I feel like we've lost the plot somewhere, if we ever had one.

At first, I thought you were asking about the scientific method what it actually was and why people might find it convincing.
It's easy enough to read up on the scientific method and you have an educational background in it as you eventually said.
So you weren't really asking people to explain what it was... ? Right?

So at first I thought I was answering questions now I feel like I let myself be drawn into something that - I now realize I don't know where it is going or even what you meant in the first place.

As to "pills" in the modern sense, like "red pill black pill etc" - Not into it.
They have those little tags on reddit on some threads 'red pill' 'black pill' and I agree with those people who use the tag that says "pills are dumb" and on my own I added "pills are toxic" and "flush the pills"

I'm just not the least interested in what people call "pills" in that sense these days.

Realization, insight, different views, sure. All for it.

"Pills" nuh-uh.
 
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I read back through the posts, hoping something would become clearer to me.
The only thing I see that I forgot is that you did read up on it before asking the forum, but it doesn't sound like what you read cleared things up for you or gave you the answers you needed.

It sounds like you are very suspicious of "the scientific method" and I'm sure there's loads of context from your own prior experiences as to why.
It also seems like you are conflating two things you think are related but would really take two conversations to tease out

1) Your issues with the scientific method itself
(doubts about its reliability?)
2) Your concern that consumers or the public do not use critical thinking
(at all or vis-à-vis the scientific method?)

Ironically, the scientific method is an application of critical thinking
 
badger said:
So, if you are told that a development was produced by the scientific method throughout, then you will believe in it?
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Still not sure what you mean.
Depends on the product and what use I might have for it.
If it needed much technical work to be created they better darn well have used the scientific method along the way.
 
TheLightWithin said:
In simplest terms, what I think you MIGHT be trying to say, is that audiences/consumers can sometimes be uncritical, and receptive to flim-flam artists who use trusted terms in careless and/or manipulative ways.

Good observation, that can occur.
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..or "it's all damn lies and statistics". :)
 
TheLightWithin said:
In simplest terms, what I think you MIGHT be trying to say, is that audiences/consumers can sometimes be uncritical, and receptive to flim-flam artists who use trusted terms in careless and/or manipulative ways.

Good observation, that can occur.
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My objective in starting this thread was not to test the actions and efforts used in the development and production of information and products, more to shake the one overall term for all that has become fashionable.

The 'scientific method' is that term. In future when people quote that term I will be asking them to explain what actions were involved or used that they are talking about.
 
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