A Note on 

 ' The Scientific Method ' 



It now seems to be agreed by those who direct our poKcy that 

 the development and application of science is of immediate 

 importance to England''s economic welfare. So long as science 

 could be thought of only as a means for the leisurely inception 

 of an Age of Plenty, its benefactions could be postponed with- 

 out fatal consequences. But we must now be satisfied with 

 lowlier aspirations: science is to lead the state as the Red 

 Queen led Alice — the most rapid progress is necessary with no 

 higher ambition than to remain in approximately the same 

 place as before. We now, therefore, hear a great deal about *"the 

 scientific method**, for the most part from people who might be 

 quite upset if they were asked just what that method was 

 supposed to be. The scholarly amateur might be heard to 

 mumble something about the Question put to Nature and the 

 experimentum crucis; the scientist speaks of quantitative method 

 and the controlled experiment; the layman is often rude 

 enough to think it no more than common sense. Let us 

 press the question. How does scientific method differ from 

 that used in other sorts of scholarly enquiry? What are the 

 rules for making scientific theories? Just what does science 

 prove? The answers to these questions have been quite 

 widely agreed upon, but are not yet common property; they 

 should be, and this essay is an attempt to make them so. 

 Being no philosopher myself, it goes without saying that in 



71 



