Lois Breur Krause said, "I disagree on the idea that a scientific
method is silly. <snip>"
I agree that the hypothesis, test, etc. explanation of "scientific
method" is not silly. But what is silly is the way some insist that
(a) all science is or should be done that way because (b) it's the only
way for a true scientist to do things.
We have a junior high science teacher who teaches this notion. He
requires all 8th graders to participate in a local science fair. It's
their whole grade for one grading period. If the project does not have
a hypotheses, test, accept/reject hypothesis format, the project fails.
I've already had my son go through this. This year my daughter will
go through it. She has already brought several cool ideas to my
attention of what she might like to do, but I just can't figure out how
to get them into the darn required format. She's frustrated. She
already said, "how can science be any fun if you're not allowed to try
the things you want to try?" In case you're wondering, the kinds of
things she wants to do is learn how something works, then build
something. For example, she wanted to learn how amplifiers work and
then try to build an amplifier for her guitar. That type of project is
absolutely not allowed in our local science fair. I even suggested
that she might form the hypothesis: "I predict that I can make a guitar
amplifier using transistors and other electronics parts." But the
teacher said, "No way."
Regardless of whether my daughters ideas were exactly "science" or not,
the types of things she has wanted to do were certainly prevalent back
in the 60's when I was involved in science fairs. All kinds of things
were being built back then.
Robert Cohen said some good things, especially: "I see the scientific
method as more of a circle than a straight line with a beginning
(hypothesis?) and an end. <snip>" I agree with his view.
In all my professional career I have been involved in exploratory ob
servational experiments. I've never had a hypothesis of any substance.
For example, one of my results occupies a little space on the chart of
the nuclides because I was first to make and measure the half-life of
chromium-47. I suppose you could say that I had the hypothesis that
47-Cr ought to exist, and it ought to have a half-life... but, duh...
that was pretty much a given. Yes, I assumed the half-life would be in
the neighborhood of 0.01 to 1 second. But basically my goal was just
to observe and measure the darn thing. There was no hypothesis to be
upheld or refuted. And that pretty much describes my whole
experimental life.
The bright part about science fair is that my son did go on to district
science fair, and the organizers of that fair specifically told judges
they were not allowed to downgrade a project simply because it does not
have a hypothesis and conclusion. They specifically said, "Contrary to
what some of you judges might think, that's not the way all of science
works." Amen!
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817