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Dear Don and Birger and all, Thank you for an interesting and useful discussion. An alternative explanation of science was given to me when I was young that matches with the historical evidence and seems to offer in many ways a better explanation than most. It provides an understanding that goes beyond the commonly held view of science dominated by the approaches used in 'physics'. A simplified picture of this view of science goes like this: In the Greek political public decision-making process, it proved beneficial to some to develop and refine powerful skills to persuade others to hold the same opinions as oneself. This body of skills and knowledge became called 'rhetoric'. Some key figures in Greek thinking identified that in many cases this did not produce the best outcomes and often did not produce the outcomes that people had been persuaded to believe via rhetoric. Some of these key figures in Greek thinking identified that various issues needed to be addressed to ensure that outcomes were as expected and to develop approaches by which the best outcomes could be predicted. This was seen as an approach to develop 'knowledge that is of better quality and more reliable'. The issues that needed to be addressed included: * Ensuring that observations about the world were accurate and reliable (and hence trustworthy). * Ensuring that any reasoning was sound, and free of personal bias and manipulation. * Ensuring that situations in which multiple possible explanations were possible were identified. * Developing a meta-level knowledge of the approaches and methods useful to develop this 'knowledge that is of better quality and more reliable'. * Developing a special way of communicating that is better suited to identifying, expressing and reasoning with this knowledge that is of better quality and more reliable. The scope of this endeavour to develop knowledge that is of better quality and more reliable is extensive as it covers the natural, 'philosophical', social, political and meta-physical realms. This generic approach to develop knowledge that is of better quality and more reliable is what became called 'science'. The endeavour has required the development of approaches that address the above issues. In particular, specific approaches were developed to address the problems of faulty empirical evidence, bias and false reasoning. A special characteristic of the endeavour is that these 'specific approaches' are tested as to their validity in addressing the issues in the above list. Taken together, once validated, these are commonly nowadays known as 'research methods'. The special way of 'communicating' this 'knowledge that is of better quality and more reliable' has involved the identification of carefully defined concepts and ways of combining them such that they closely represent the world's behaviour. This offers prediction of outcomes across all areas of interest to humans, including design. Often this is done via a language intended for this purpose called mathematics. The advantages of this 'picture' of 'science' and 'research' include that it applies similarly across all arenas of interest to humans, such as design. It also provides a touchstone for assessing the usefulness and validity of all the approaches developed in design for creating knowledge that is of better quality and more reliable. Best wishes, Terry ____________________ Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask] Senior Lecturer Researcher, Social Program Evaluation Research Unit Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia Senior Lecturer, Dept of Design Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia Director, Design Out Crime Research Centre Member of Management Panel IMechE (WA) Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK ____________________ -----Original Message----- From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Don Norman Sent: Saturday, 11 February 2012 12:51 AM To: Dr Terence Love Subject: Where science fails I thought it might be both useful to look briefly at several places where science fails. In my attempts to understand phenomena and fields, I always prefer a balanced approach, one that looks at the strengths and weaknesses, at the virtues and the flaws.