List,

I found this very short provocative essay of interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/opinion/there-is-no-scientific-method.html?ref=opinion

The author's conclusion:

If scientific method is only one form of a general method employed in all
human inquiry, how is it that the results of science are more reliable than
what is provided by these other forms? I think the answer is that science
deals with highly quantified variables and that it is the precision of its
results that supplies this reliability. But make no mistake: Quantified
precision is not to be confused with a superior method of thinking.

I am not a practicing scientist. So who am I to criticize scientists’
understanding of their method?

I would turn this question around. Scientific method is not itself an
object of study for scientists, but it is an object of study for
philosophers of science. It is not scientists who are trained specifically
to provide analyses of scientific method.

James Blachowicz <http://www.luc.edu/philosophy/faculty_blachowicz.shtml> is
a professor emeritus of philosophy at Loyola University Chicago and the
author of “Of Two Minds: The Nature of Inquiry
<http://www.sunypress.edu/p-2705-of-two-minds.aspx>” and “Essential
Difference: Toward a Metaphysics of Emergence
<http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5374-essential-difference.aspx>.”
Best,

​Gary R​



[image: Gary Richmond]

*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690*
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