More on the Scientific Method

By B. W. Moore

I found Mr Berryman's reflections on scientific method enormously entertaining and amusing. The bigot's view expressed with enthusiasm always makes a delightful satire on itself—perhaps it was so intended.

However it occurs to me that some readers may have taken the article seriously. (I find it hard to believe that anyone with such an impressive command of the bigger words of our language and such a readable prose style—both of which I envy greatly could possibly hold such inane views.) Thus I feel it may be useful to point out some of the misconceptions upon which Mr Berryman's iconoclastic edifice is based.

Mr. Berryman's first sentence is: "The term scientific refers to a method or a way." This is inadequate. The best way to characterise the sciences is by the logical status of the statements they comprise. These statements are not held to be true nor even susceptible to being proven true; however they may be proven false. Thus there can be no ultimate statements in science; it is logically impossible for science to "arrive at ultimate reality".

The scientist, when confronted with unexplained phenomena formulates an explanatory hypothesis (and this may often require feats of imagination in no way inferior to those of the creative artist); in many sciences the scientist can then test his hypothesis. This process was clearly described by Professor Barber; it involves using the hypothesis to make predictions of what should happen under certain conditions. If these predicted events fail to occur the hypothesis has been falsified; but if they do occur, the hypothesis cannot be regarded as true. The more generally accepted statements, or "laws" of science are those hypotheses which, although well tested, have not yet been falsified.

The political scientist is less fortunate than many of his fellows; he does not have a laboratory in which to run carefully controlled tests of his hypotheses. Mr Berryman's suggestion that they want to use people or countries for experiments is simply ludicrous. However it is clear that this arises from his lack of understanding of the nature of science and the place of scientific method.

When an hypothesis has withstood many and varied experiments it may often be used, with reasonable confidence, to make predictions. Now contrary to what Mr. Berryman might like to believe, human behaviour en masse, is often finite predictable, For a simple example, a brands share of the women's hair spray market follows very closely (but with a small time lag) the brand's relative promotional expenditure; thus the latter can be used to predict the former. Naturally, as he can only use history and not a laboratory for testing his hypotheses, the political scientist's will not be as reliable as the physicist's; but this is no reason to deny their usefulness.

Mr, Berryman's accusation of prejudice on the part of the political scientist, although cleverly argued, is trivial. It is based on a confusion—albeit, a well contrived confusion—between two different applications of the word 'dispassionate'. It is quite possible, and indeed among scientists quite common, for a man passionately interested in his subject, to take a "dispassionate look at the facts". Thus he can have ample motivation and still keep his scientific objectivity.

A further confusion apparent throughout Mr. Berryman's reflections, is between the scientist and the technician. The politician, qua politician, is a political technician, not a political scientist; he implements the more accepted developments of political science. Democracy, communism, and Keynesian monetary theory are good examples.

Yet another confusion is apparent in Mr. Berryman's characterization of the political scientist as one who "'reduces man to a social digit". Of course man is many faceted, and the field of politics is correspondingly complicated. But as Mr. Berryman points out: "analysis is merely a simplification of the political structure to enable men to understand its workings more easily." (Analysis not to be confused with scientific method.) Surely such understanding is desirable.

Many of the major problems facing the world today are political. The political scientist, in promoting a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in these problems, does more than anyone else toward producing their long term solution.