The scientific method can't save us — because it doesn't exist.
Claims on television and Twitter notwithstanding, there is no such thing as "the scientific method," no single set of steps or one-size-fits-all solution to the problems we face. Ask any scientist: what they do, individually and collectively, is too diverse, too dynamic, too difficult to follow one recipe.
But its nonexistence has never dampened the scientific method's appeal. And now, in the face of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the question of who is (or is not) adhering to the scientific method feels more urgent than ever. We want to be reassured that rules are being followed and informed decisions are being made as we battle the virus and its disease, COVID-19. Fictional or not, "the scientific method" seems to offer safety in unsafe times.
If science saves us, though, it will be because it lacks a single method. The novel coronavirus causing the current crisis presents a multidimensional challenge — to personal, public, economic and mental health. There is no single tool with which to confront such a threat; what we need is a vast tool kit.
Luckily, scientists know this. Science is about staying flexible, trying out a variety of tools as the questions we try to answer change before our eyes. It is a process, not a product. Supporting scientists in our moment of need should start with a better understanding of what exactly they do all day.
Ironically, this is the same goal that got us "the scientific method." In 1910, the philosopher and psychologist John Dewey published a brief introduction to thinking in general, based on research at the Laboratory School he had founded at the University of Chicago. Called "How We Think," Dewey's book argued that teaching science properly meant paying attention to how children actually think.
If you paid attention, Dewey argued, you saw that children were already scientific thinkers — they were creative, they solved problems, they worked together. Science came naturally to them. Sure, the science practiced by adults was more advanced, with its own tools and specialized techniques. But at bottom, how scientists think is just how we think — hence the title.
Dewey emphasized that science was all around us and that was its strength. What mattered was that people were solving problems that interested them, that mattered. Teaching children chemistry would work only if students cared about the outcome; that was why he and his fellow teachers taught it not with chemicals in test tubes but by cooking with ingredients. The kitchen was a laboratory, a site for solving problems and showing students that science was all around them.