Although these recently deceased famous men did not use the term “the scientific method” extensively in their writing, they did believe in its existence. The limited use of the term “the scientific method” is common among scientists who, while recognizing the existence of the method, are so engrossed in following it that they pay little attention to a written model procedure for it.

In his book Scientific Method (1972) Professor James K. Feibleman calls attention to this with this statement:

“At the present time science is taught largely on the apprentice method, and the scientist is not particularly aware that he is following any established procedure; rather is he always occupied with some specific problem involved in that procedure, guided chiefly by past experience, by accepted tradition, training, memory, and imitation.”

Science and the Scientific Method

Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988). Often called the greatest physicist who ever lived, Nobel Prize-winning Feynman discusses, in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (1985), how “in the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people,” who, during WWII, “saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now.” The natives duplicate the runways, fires, etc. and wait for the planes to land, which of course they don’t. Feynman terms this kind of pseudoscience “cargo cult science” after the South Seas natives’ brand of scientific investigation, that , while following all the precepts and forms, misses something essential. For Feynman, this essential element is the scientific method. In his famous lectures on physics, he says:

“. . . Observation, reason, and experimentation make up what we call scientific method.”

Carl Sagan (1934-1996). A Pulitzer Prize winner and one of America’s most visionary astronomers who helped popularize science for the masses with his unique blend of imagination and knowledge, Sagan wrote in his book Broca’s Brain (1979):

Scientists are, of course, human. When their passions are excited they may abandon temporarily the ideals of their discipline. But these ideals, the scientific method, have proved enormously effective. Finding out the way the world really works requires a mix of hunches, intuition and brilliant creativity; it also requires skeptical scrutiny of every step. It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.”

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). Known as one of the world’s premier science fiction writers as well as the twentieth century’s most recognized one-man encyclopedist, Asimov boasted 477 published titles by his own count, all detailing the information of the age. He is largely credited with influencing the generation that propelled the world into the space age and landed a man on the moon. In the introduction to Saul and Newman’s book Science Fare (1986) Asimov says:

“In fact, it is to children that the scientific method should be taught, for it must be instilled early. If a child grows up without this mental discipline and becomes an adult without having learned how to think in a systematic way, it may be too late to begin then.”