The Real Scientific Method
by Taner Edis
It's time someone composed a slightly more realistic version of
Ye Olde Scientifick Methode. Therefore, here it is, refurbished
to reflect modern realities:
- Think up some project that has a good chance of attracting
grant money.
- Devise a radical hypothesis to explain the (yet
unobserved) data, and highlight how it is extremely important
to support your work since it has such important
implications.
- Repeatedly emphasize how your hypothesis alters our
perception of Life, The Universe, and Everything. Even
better, hint at how it can lead to immediate corporate
applications.
- Using the grant money, buy expensive equipment, and hire
some grad students and postdocs to continually tell you how
brilliant you are. Hope they will do some actual work.
- Get some results which look promising, but are
inconclusive enough to justify turning this project into a
long-term research program.
- Go back to step 3 and continue refining until you have a
solid proposal to extend your grant for another year.
- Publish often during this process. Preferably, every small
and incremental "advance" deserves a paper of its own. Be
repetitious -- the number of publications is what counts, not
their quality.
- If others repeat the same sort of experiment, and get
vaguely the same sort of results, band together to form an
interest group. Organize conferences where you invite and
praise each other. Cite each others' work in your papers.
Call your general results "___'s Law", where "___" is the most
influential member of your group. Lobby for more money,
making sure to point out that your field is "hot," emphasizing
that scientific revolutions or commercial products are just
around the bend.
- If new observations or experiments come along which don't
fit your law or theory, attack them as obviously wrong. Don't
invite researchers who disagree with your interest group to
your conferences. Give dissenting papers bad peer reviews in
the anonymous review process. Praise their grant proposals as
"good" when advising granting agencies, knowing full well that
only "excellent" projects stand a chance of getting
funded.
- If political winds shift and you find yourself defending
an unpopular theory, make a virtue of it. Read Charles Tart,
and sell your project as such a revolutionary idea that we
must redesign stagnating orthodox science to accommodate it.
Find a senator who will try and create a new government agency
dedicated to your interest group's work.
- While doing all this, go back to step 1 whenever you feel
inspired.
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.
-- Aldous Huxley