Hello again, and I hope this finds you well. Today, I want to talk about the scientific method, a process that scientists use when they are studying anything, well, scientific. Like psychology, chemistry, biology, physics, medicine, and more.
I bring this up because it seems that we are living in an era where science is coming under attack, which is dangerous for our health as a society and a human race, when we are facing a pandemic.
Science is not hard and fast, like concrete. It doesn't concoct a law of gravity, for instance, in one study and then say: "That is it! We know all we need to know about gravity!" Gravity, and all the other areas of science, including the psychological science of human behavior, is ever changing for many reasons, two being that we develop new technologies to help us study things in more detail or differently, and one new understanding allows us to ask another question that will possibly uncover more complexity to our original understanding.
If that sounds muddy, let me clarify with an example. I study human behavior, which is a science, and we can all probably understand human behavior to some degree (although we also can say there are a lot of things we don't understand about humans in general, and those specific humans we spend our lives with, like family). So, one area I teach is parenting. Parenting research is always changing, because what we understand about the short and long term outcomes of parenting continues to grow. There is no one set way to parent, because people are different (personality, for instance), and cultures set different expectations for the humans that live within it. There was a time a few decades ago when a Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote several books about parenting, and those books were hailed as the greatest reference for parents around. Those books, and Dr. Spock's ideas were not so 'hailed' anymore, as we have seen the long term outcomes of his ideas for parenting, and they were not always great. So, does that mean we just say 'to hell with research on parenting, those psychologists don't know what they are talking about'? No, I hope not. We take what Dr. Spock said, how parents implemented it, and we look at the huge number of children who are now well into late adulthood and see how that parenting impacted them, so we can correct our understanding of best parenting practices!
That example gives a little insight, I hope, to what the scientific method is all about. It is a process that continues, over time, to help us understand an idea (like parenting, or a germ) with more complexity. The scientific method itself begins with an idea. That idea typically spawns curiosity to investigate what our current understanding (research) is for that idea, to see if anyone else has had that idea and has studied it empirically (research). If someone has already looked at it, then you might have your answer to your idea, but maybe that allows you to think about your idea with more detail. Then, if you still have this idea, or question, you set out to test it using the scientific method, drawing on rigorous research methods that have been tested for decades. You decide on a method that works best for the idea, or question, you have in mind. You recruit participants in the case of psychological research, or germs in the case of medical research, and you begin to carefully and methodologically investigate your question, to see what the data uncovers. Does that data support your idea, answer your question, or does it uncover more questions yet? That is what makes science so interesting right there!
For those who aren't geeked out by science, though, that may be where you decide science is not scientific at all, based on your understanding of what science should be. This is the important 'inflection point'. Oh, I have heard that phrase far too much this year, but it does work for this conversation. This is where we must clarify what science 'is'. Science does not end when one study is concluded. Science continues. That is why we have better medicines to treat diseases, or new treatments for illness like cancer or diabetes. Science continues as we develop better instruments, like MRI machines to create images of brain activity, or stronger microscopes to see human cells more clearly.
So, here in the United States, did science, or scientists, tell us early in the pandemic that any mask would suffice, only later to tell us that some masks are better than others? Yes, you bet they did. Because when they first studied mask wearing, they found that mask wearing vs. no mask wearing uncovered a significant difference in the spread of germs from our mouth and nose. But they didn't stop there, because science evolves. Someone asked the question: "Hey, is any mask good, or are there different types of masks that are better than others?" So, because a scientist asked the question, they used the scientific method to investigate, using more data (bigger data sets are more accurately, typically, than smaller data sets... studying 5 parents is interesting, but studying 50,000 parents tells us a lot more about the different outcomes from parenting styles).
More data, more investigations, more understanding. Science evolves, just like humans. So, don't throw the science out just because it changes. Be worried when it STOPS changing, because that might just suggest that someone thinks they have learned all they need to know. I don't know about YOU, but I am confident there is ALWAYS more to know. About anything. Our selves. Our planet. Our family. Our society. Our germs.
Okay, I hope that this has been enlightening, as we continue our journey through a pandemic. Trust science. Ask questions about the science, and how the conclusions were gathered, how big the data set was (please don't make conclusions about the human race with a small sample of people from one community), and whether the person analyzing the data and drawing conclusions is an expert in that particular area. Example: when drawing conclusions about human behavior, you want the expert making those conclusions to be an expert in human behavior, not earth science. Same goes for medicine. If you want credible conclusions drawn from data on infectious diseases, make sure the scientist making those conclusions is an expert in infectious disease. I wouldn't ask my gynecologist for advice about my dental health, so.... you get the idea!
Be well, stay safe, and take care.
Comments