Dear Ken
Yes you're quite right; sorry my characterization of Simon is indeed quite inaccurate. The parts on intuition in his Administrative Behavior are coming back to me now, and Simon himself spoke of developing a science of design that is "part analytical, part empirical" etc. He did renounce positivism explicitly also, in footnote in the latest edition of Administrative Behavior. What I think he did not renounce was the denial of the substantive norms directing our moral ends (rather than instrumental norms) in ethics, something he inherited from his earlier positivism, but which he now speaks of in the context of the naturalistic fallacy. Thanks, point well taken.
Very best
Jude
________________________________________
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 7:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: projection before analysis
Dear Jude,
Your post offers useful thoughts. Without disagreeing, I want to
suggest two nuances.
First, evidence-based practice does not entail the unthinking
application of scientific method through numerical or statistical means.
Evidence-based practice uses scientific method as an aid to clinical
practice. This is the case for evidence-based medicine, and it also
applies to what David Durling calls evidence-based design.
For those who do not wish to read up on the entire literature of
evidence-based practice or evidence-based medicine, Wikipedia has a
respectable and well-informed article. Wikipedia captures the salient
issue:
“EBM/EBP recognizes that many aspects of health care depend on
individual factors such as and judgments, which are only partially
subject to scientific methods. EBP, however, seeks to clarify those
parts of medical practice that are in principle subject to scientific
methods and to apply these methods to ensure the best of outcomes in
medical treatment, even as debate continues about which outcomes are
desirable.”
This leads to the second point. Herbert Simon’s view of “design
science.” Simon did not advocate the design science approach as a form
of what you are labeling “positivism.” It would be lovely for people
to resist throwing the term “positivism” at every form of inquiry
using statistical methods or other forms of scientific method.
Positivist inquiry is best seen as an approach different to normative
inquiry, that is, an approach to scientific method based on the attempt
to describe what is the case rather than what should be. In the era of
post-modernism, positivism became a generic dirty word for any attempt
to measure or state what is so – and this obviously includes all kinds
of inquiry that attempt to describe what is so, including research based
on qualitative methods. All this should be kept separate from the very
specific movement known as logical positivism. With respect to design
science, Simon called for an approach – as in evidence-based medicine
– in which we use scientific method as far as we can. For the rest, he
acknowledges that design relies in great part on intuition, heuristics,
and experience. It’s worth reading Simon on this. While I agree with
Nigel on many issues, we’ve debated this point: I think Simon would
generally agree with Nigel on many issues concerning expertise and
designerly ways of knowing. But I don’t accept the idea that a design
science relies purely on scientific method, and therefore, design
science does not worry me.
Quite the contrary, we can make much greater progress by seeing where
we can apply scientific method, sorting out what works and what
doesn’t, than we can on heuristics alone. One of the real problems
with design is that designers often don’t know what works and they
don’t care to find out.
I’m starting to feel a bit like an old-fashioned tent preacher
thumping the Bible while I peach the gospel of what we know and what we
don’t know, but I’m going to say that Don Norman’s Core77 piece on
Why Design Education Must Change explains these issues well.
http://www.core77.com/blog/columns/why_design_education_must_change_17993.asp
For those who want to consider the design science approach and reflect
on the advantages it offers to design practice, I’ll thump my own tub
to suggest Design Design and Design Education. It is available at URL:
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/189707
I’ll return at some point to respond to Ranjan and to offer a few
thoughts on Lubomir’s excellent post. I agree with Lubomir, so it will
be a concurring opinion.
Warm wishes,
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3
9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design
--
Chua Soo Meng Jude wrote:
—snip—
Although I must say I found the phrase “evidence-based” research
especially tantalizing.
The evidence-based movement is currently appealing, but can lead to a
variety of excesses, culimating in a kind of idolatry (c.f. Marion) of
numbers, and can also displace some other kinds of rigorous thinking
(usually critical and philosophical) about issues because such discourse
don’t easily “count” as evidence. Some people now prefer
“evidence-informed” research, or policy thinking / design. And
most critically, it aligns itself with the “design science” movement
quite well, which subjects design to positivist paradigmatic lenses,
something that Nigel Cross, I remember, recommend we approach
hesitantly.
While on this track, is there any hope for a kind of “social
scientific” account of design, approaching a kind of theology of
design, especially since as John Milbank has argued, there is just no
such a thing as the “secular” or “secular social science”, and
that “social science is just simply bad theology”?
—snip—
National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg
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