Editing Scientific method

The '''scientific method''' is what most people invoke when they really mean just a higher degree of [[investigative integrity]] than ordinary [[mutual cognition]].  It is a serious mistake to confuse scientific shared cognition with [[moral cognition]] however, this error is called '''scientism'''.

One consequence of scientism is that one may try to use the scientific method to resolve a question that actually requires [[moral choice]].  For instance one might assume the morality does not apply, as one would do for a scientific experiment, and try to do things that it would forbid to see if one can do so.  In science, this effectively disproves theories and clears the way for new ones.  In morality, of course, it destroys all [[trust]] anyone has anywhere.  Some think [[rogue state]]s have become so by letting this method be used to make major decisions in their diplomacy and [[international law]].

See [[w:scientific method]] and [[w:scientism]] for more on these issues.  We do not discuss them on the [[R&D wiki]] directly, but are quite interested in the overall question of what can be reduced to [[score]] or [[price premium]] and what can't.