ABSTRACT
Forty years of physics have not trained me in ‘scientific method’, which of course should be called ‘methods’. The old word ‘method’ has passed away. It started 350 years ago and died last century. Scientific methods have passed me by in my 40 years of physics... They have not made me tidy, well organized, punctual and unbiased in my opinions. My psychologist friends assure me that it is just not true that we can easily transfer a training in physics, which we so ardently and sometimes angrily impose, to people's lives in general or to other studies. Only if there is a strong feeling of delight, ambition, a wish—a sentiment as the psychologists call it—only then will it transfer. So I have with sorrow heard scientific method being claimed as something we give to the general public. I haven't noticed it, and in 40 years of physics I don't seem to have picked up very much of it myself, outside of physics where I am careful to keep my trade union card...
