Why Methods

Note: The German version of this entry can be found here: Why Methods (German).

In short: This entry provides an overview on why scientific methods are not only highly relevant for conducting science but also for our society.

Scientific methods and modern society[edit]

Scientific methods are among theories, topics and conduct one of the main pillars of modern science. The word modern may sound as progress to many, but always encapsulates also a certain critique. Modernity may have brought progress in all sorts of ways for a privileged few, yet also led to an increase in inequalities concerning for example the income distribution, access to education and medical care. Yet without scientific methods civilisation would be vastly different than it is today. The canon of scientific methods dates partly back for centuries or even millennia, yet over the last decades we can diagnose an exponential increase in the diversity and application of scientific methods. This does not come as a surprise since other exponential effects such as population growth or environmental pollution are all dynamics that are not independent of scientific methods. Hence scientific methods can be identified as one of the drivers of modern civilization. Antibiotics, the internet and Crispr are all developments that are closely intertwined with a diversity of scientific methods as well as their users and developers. Without interviews, surveys and statistics modern society would look vastly different, just to name a few examples of prominent scientific methods. To this end we should ignore the question whether the world would be better or worse without scientific methods, which is certainly too complex to be answered in any short text.

Scientific Methods and Disciplines[edit]

Specific scientific methods are closely entangled with specific scientific disciplines. Applied physics often relies on large experimental setups; biology utilises tools such as microscopes or genetic analysis to better understand how life works and evolves; empirical sociology often works with surveys, interviews and statistics. Yet for other branches of science this association is less clear and often more blurry. For example, ethnography is strongly diversified and relies on many scientific methods that form a critical canon which are represented by a higher diversity compared to other scientific disciplines.

Scientific methods and Knowledge Creation[edit]

This diversity and adaptability is often reflecting the diversity of knowledge that is being aimed for. For example, medical science often relates to specific scientific methods because of the design of clinical trials, which demand high ethical standards as well as robust knowledge that has been tested and validated repeatedly. Hence on one end of the gradient of the production of knowledge certainly are reproducibility and robustness, yet on the other end can be critical knowledge that is novel and consequently demands new methodological knowledge. For example, we did not know much about the perceptions of people before interviews became established as a scientific method. Besides the kind of knowledge that we want to create, theories can also influence the utilisation of methods drastically, since theories are often like lenses that we use to look at certain strata of reality. Investigating the role of suppressed individuals during colonialism demands a recognition of these suppressive systems and their power structures to begin with before we can apply scientific methods to investigate them.

Limitations of Scientific Methods[edit]

Further, scientific methods are often prone to limited or biased knowledge production, and the reduction of methodological approaches into mere tools or recipes certainly underlines their dangerous developments. To quote Watzlawick "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". This is one of the main critiques towards scientific methods, and should be a constant reminder that we need to be critical not only of the knowledge that we produce, but also to the process that leads to it ("If hammer meets hand, hammer wins"). This is one of the many reasons why science is increasingly criticised if not trolled online and by social media, or even by governmental leaders. Communicating the confidence of knowledge created by science and also being critical of the impact and transformation this knowledge creates is obviously something that we still need to learn better. If people are afraid of vaccines that are proven to work we cannot convince them by a scientific explanation that they cannot understand based on their limited access to education. After all, not everyone is a medical doctor, and there are different capabilities why people may understand scientific knowledge, or why they question it. This lack of trust also partly originated in science, and scientific methods contribute to this challenge. For example, the weather forecast is pretty accurate, but most people only remember the one day that the weather forecast was wrong concerning a strong thunderstorm. If you endure this one wrong prediction in the pouring rain, you have an emotional experience that makes many people deny the accuracy of the overall prediction. In other words, personal experience and scientific -supposably- objectivity are often extreme opposites right now, and it is up to the scientists to regain this trust, or to approach this mistrust by other means.

Concerning scientific methods this is even more difficult, because understanding scientific methods takes experience, and developing such experience takes time. Becoming for example versatile in conducting interviews and critically analysing them qualitatively may take hundreds of hours until you are really experienced. Gaining experience in statistics takes a similar time frame. Hence all scientific methods have a high demand on the learner, and internalising the validity and comparability of results generated from scientific methods may take even longer. Equally, gaining a critical perspective or understanding the necessity for a proper documentation in qualitative research may take a long time. Actors outside of science in society have hardly the time to invest in order to gain such deep insight into the knowledge production process associated with scientific methods. Hence it is up to us scientists to learn how to communicate scientific results, and how to (re-)gain the trust that scientific institutions need in order to inform the wider society.

This is of particular importance in the information age, when the validity of any given unit of information is ever more contested. More and more people have access to knowledge, yet this does not equal a critical understanding. Scientific methods are ever more evolving, yet the largest part of knowledge is still undiscovered country to us. Time will tell how we can become worthy of all the knowledge our future may hold.

The author of this entry is Henrik von Wehrden.