Iterative
If you’re a scientist, how can you not love the Scientific Method?
If you take out those pesky randomized trials and control groups, you’re skipping a critical step, testing.
If you’re a scientist, how can you not love the Scientific Method?
The French microbiologist that initially popularized the uncertain outcomes of treating Covid-19 positive patients with hydroxychloroquine was quoted complaining about the “dictatorship of the methodologists” who insist on randomization and control groups in clinical trials.
I admire his turn of phrase. The “dictatorship of the methodologists” is exquisitely evocative but with an ambulance chasing attorney vibe.
Jim Adler, legendary Texas attorney. Photo: Carolyn Hestand Kennedy
I’m Didier Raoult, the French microbiologist, I stand tough and with a big, big hammer!
Even if you don’t find a thrill participating in the base jump of releasing your work for peer review, an admiration for process is science. If you take out those pesky randomized trials and control groups, you’re skipping a critical step; testing.
And in this particular instance, testing that removes the bias of the tester and protects patients from harm.
It’s like blind orchestra auditions. The performer plays behind a partition to relieve the judge of bias. Some auditions even use carpet to dampen the steps of performers as they enter to reduce the possibility of discerning gender from their gait. The outcome is more women make it to preliminary and final rounds.
Vienna Philharmonic blind audition configuration. Photo: Jun Keller
In the world of science, part of testing is subjecting your results to peers who conduct the same experiment, using the same methodologies with the objective of achieving the same outcomes to prove the initial hypothesis. If your hypothesis is correct, then the results should be repeatable. It’s not a dictatorship it’s a sparklingly, transparent, meritocracy.
Kahn Academy has captured the essence very elegantly in the last paragraph of their Scientific Method lesson.
In most cases, the scientific method is an iterative process. In other words, it's a cycle rather than a straight line. The result of one go-round becomes feedback that improves the next round of question asking.
I’m not a scientist but I find it heroic that these beautifully, disciplined practitioners of the Scientific Method have assembled an objective reality, slowly and meticulously over centuries that has stood the test of time.