Americans’ Knowledge of the Problem-Solving Process
I have reviewed only some of the areas in which great harm has resulted from the scientific method blunder. It has caused our scientists to learn the method of science mostly by the apprentice method…but at least they learn it. However, the other 99% of the population learns very little about it. The scientific method is a rational method - based on reasoning, not haphazard wandering (although creative thinking is also a prominent feature of even a rational method). The following quote is an important one. It applies to managers, but the situation is the same in almost all other fields except science.
“For example, rational approaches receive little consideration in recent handbooks of managerial probem solving. What has limited the influence of rational approaches to management problem solving? Mintzberg’s influential studies of what managers actually do, as opposed to what they are supposed to do or what they say they do, provided unwelcome news to proponents of rational approaches to managerial problem solving. Mintzberg found that even successful managers rarely if ever employed rational approaches. Rather than follow a step-by-step sequence from problem definition to problem solution, managers typically groped along with only vague impressions about the nature of the problems they were dealing with, and with little idea of what the ultimate solution would be until they had found it.” (Richard K. Wagner in Complex Problem Solving, 1991, edited by Sternberg and French)
So, we have almost an entire population, with some minor exceptions, inadequately educated and trained in the basic process of problem solving. Since it is a natural method, many people follow the scientific method instinctively to some extent, and many are taught some of the logical and technical methods used at the various stages. But if people were properly educated and trained in the use of the scientific method, we could expect a substantial improvement in our welfare.
