Bill+Week+One+Assignment

“Scientists obtain Scientific Knowledge by following The Scientific Method, a uniquely powerful tool for understanding Reality”. I agree with Halwes’ that this statement is a myth. People are brought up believing that the scientific method is always used to obtain new and build on knowledge because they are taught to follow it throughout elementary, middle, and high school. I believe, similar to P.W. Bridgman, that scientists try their hardest while working in their fields. I have never heard of a scientist that has just made a breakthrough discovery saying that first, he asked himself a question and followed by researching, hypothesizing, and so on.

It is ironic how science is constantly used to improve the understanding of almost everything in the universe, but “science itself, which is after all another type of human activity, hasn’t been studies much scientifically”. The scientific method should not be used in all different areas of science. For one, it is impossible to have a method to discover something that has not yet been discovered yet. In other words, would it make sense to have a cookbook with the same directions for every recipe?

The connection between science and Huxley’s //The Brave New World// seems to be a little stretched at first, but Halwes’ connection actually does make sense. “ Some students are begining as early as junior high school to do research projects that are considered, by scientists specializing in research on their chosen topics, to be valuable contributions to scientific understanding”. In this example, the students are the “general public” and the specialized scientists are “facilitators”. From this point of view, one can say that George Orwell’s prediction of what the world would end up being like is true; however, I doubt he used the scientific method while writing to predict this.