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Incident in the store

The old man had just turned off the lights in the store and was preparing to lock up and go home when a youth appeared and demanded money. The owner opened the cash register; the contents were grabbed, and the man ran away. The police were informed immediately.

1. A young man appeared after the lights had been turned off.
2. The old man was preparing to go home.
3. The robber demanded money.
4. Someone opened the cash register.
5. The robber demanded money from the owner.
6. The cash register contained money, but we are not told how much money.
7. The gender of the owner was not revealed in the story.
8. The man ran away after he had demanded money.

[T]he scientific method postulates three key stages in the research process: (a) observing a phenomenon or identifying a problem; (b) generating an initial hypothesis; and (c) testing the hypothesis by collecting and analysing empirical data using standardized procedures. Once the hypothesis has been successfully tested and further validated through replication, it becomes accepted as a scientific theory or law. Thus, the scientific method offer[s] a tool to explore questions in an ‘objective’ manner, trying to minimize the influence of any researcher bias or prejudice, thereby resulting in what scholars believed was an accurate and reliable description of the world. (Dörnyei 31)

In its origins, the scientific method “was closely associated with numerical values and statistics, along the line of Nobel prize winner Lord Rutherford’s famous maxim that any knowledge that one cannot measure numerically ‘is a poor sort of knowledge’” (ibid, my emphasis).

Here we have it: a Nobel prize winner’s (!) claim that a particular type of knowledge is superior to another – the type of knowledge that is objective, mathematically measurable and, essentially, logical in its nature. Any thoughts on this? Do ponder… and also consider the very carefully worded “to explore questions in an ‘objective’ manner” (Why the single quotation marks?) and “resulting in what scholars believed was an accurate and reliable description of the world” (Why “believed” rather than “knew”? Why “was” rather than “is”? What counterclaims are embedded here? What have we since conceded about the objectivity of the scientific method?).
 

P.S. English A1 students: I’m listening to the An Equal Music CDs.

Bibliographical Reference:

Dörnyei, Zoltán. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.