Experimentation

by :  Professor Matt Ridley

     We learn about experimentation in school. What we learn is that scientists conduct experiments, and in our labs, if we copy exactly what they did, we will get the results they got. We learn about the experiments scientists do---usually about the physical and chemical properties of things-and we learn that they report their results in scientific journals. So, in effect, we learn that experimentation is boring, is something done by scientists, and has nothing to do with our daily lives. 

     And this is a problem. Experimentation is something done by everyone all the time. Babies experiment with what might be good to put in their mouths. Toddlers experiment with various behaviors to see what they can get away with. But because people don't really see these things as experiments or as ways of collecting evidence in support or refutation of hypotheses, they don't learn to think about experimentation as something they do constantly and thus need to learn to do better.

      Every time we take a prescription drug, we are conducting an experiment. But we don't carefully record the results after each dose, and we don't run controls, and we mix up the variables by not changing only one behavior at a time, so that when we suffer from side effects we can't figure out what might have been their true cause. We do the same with personal relationships: When they go wrong, we can't figure out why, because the conditions are different in each one. 

    Now, while it is difficult if not impossible to conduct controlled experiments in most aspects of our lives, it is possible to come to understand that we are indeed conducting an experiment when we try a new tactic in a game,- or when we try and figure out how someone is feeling or wonder why we ourselves feel as we do. 

     Every aspect of life is an experiment that can be better understood if it is perceived in that way. But because we don't recognize this, we fail to understand that we need to reason logically from evidence we gather, carefully consider the conditions under which our experiment has been conducted, and decide when and how we might run the experiment again with better results. The scientific activity that surrounds experimentation is about thinking clearly in the face of evidence obtained from the experiment. But people who don't see their actions as experiments and don't know how to reason carefully from data will continue to learn less well from their experiences than those who do.

    Most of us, having learned the word "experiment" in the context of a boring, have long since learned to discount science and experimentation as irrelevant to our lives.  If we taught basic cognitive concepts, such as experimentation, in the context of everyday experience, instead of concentrating on algebra as a way of teaching people how to reason, then people would be much more effective at thinking about politics, business, and every other their daily lives.