In Posts 18 and 19 I argued that was NO single scientific method, because scientists use many different methods in their attempts to understand how the world works, as I hope this series of posts has shown.
Here, though, I am going to argue YES, because all of science is based on one simple approach – to check out your guesses and beliefs against reality whenever you can.
And THAT is science. You do it every day. You do it when you are crossing the road, checking to see whether cars are coming even though you guess that they are probably not. You do it when you are cooking. You do it when you check out how someone is feeling, rather than relying on your intuition about how they might (or even must!) be feeling. If more people applied this approach to more of their beliefs and dogmas, the world would surely be a better place.
I was stimulated to return to this subject after revisiting Richard Feynman’s wonderful short video on the subject. You can check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw. Feynman has been a stimulus and an inspiration for many a young (and old) scientist. Maybe he will stimulate and encourage you as well, and convince you that science is, or ought to be, a part of your life, whether you are a professional scientist or not.