Science's methods aren't just for science

by : Aria Ratmandanu 

        Most people tend to think of science in one of two ways. It is a body of knowledge and understanding about the world: gravity, photosynthesis, evolution. Or it is the technology that has emerged from of that knowledge: vaccines, computers, cars. Science is both of these things, yet as Carl Sagan so memorably explained in Demon-Haunted World, it is something else besides. It is a way of thinking, the best approach yet devised (if still an imperfect one) for discovering progressively better approximations of how things really are. 

    Science is provisional, always open to revision in light of new evidence. It is antiauthoritarian: Anybody can contribute, and anybody can be wrong. It seeks actively to test its propositions And it is comfortable with uncertainty. These qualities give the sdientific method unparalleled strength as a way of finding things out. Its power, however, is too often confined to an intellectual ghetto-those disciplines that have historically been considered scientific." 

      Science as a method has great things to contribute to all sorts of pursuits beyond the laboratory. Yet it remains missing in action from far too much of public life. Politicians and civil servants too seldom appreciate how tools drawn from both the natural and Social sciences can be used to design more effective policies, and even to win votes.  

    In education and criminal justice, for example, interventions are regularly undertaken without being subjected to proper evaluation. Both fields can be perfectly amenable to one of science's most potent techniques-the randomized controlled trial-- yet these are seldom required before new initiatives are put into place. Pilots are often derisory in nature, failing even to evidence that could be used to evaluate a policy's success. 

      The culture of public service could also learn from the self-critical culture of science. The scientific method and the approach to critical thinking it promotes are too useful to be kept back for "science" alone. If science can help us to understand the first microseconds the universe and the structure of the ribosome, it can surely improve our understanding of how best to tackle the pressing social questions of our time.