scientific thinking – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Science, Faith & Society: A Searching Examination of the Meaning & Nature of Scientific Inquiry

By Scott J. Pearson | May 28, 2025May 28, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

In this book, philosopher of science and eminent chemist Michael Polanyi warns, scientific inquiry cannot exist without a society and a culture that supports it. That is, science’s light can be extinguished if society decides to stamp it out. The freedom to learn about nature requires not only economic supports but also cultural supports. Writing just after the conclusion of World War II, he argues that scientific progress in Europe needs the foundation of a…

Management-Business Science

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science

By Scott J. Pearson | November 28, 2024November 28, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Most problems that contemporary society faces require experts from more than one discipline to explore them through research. Traditional fields of knowledge have become so subspecialized that teams, not individuals, are now the units to advance knowledge. Yet institutions and individuals are usually poorly equipped and organized to address these challenges. They often still exist in a dated mindset where different spheres of knowledge exist in hierarchies, not collaborative networks. The National Academies in the…

Economics Management-Business

The Innovator’s Hypothesis: How Cheap Experiments are Worth More than Good Ideas

By Scott J. Pearson | January 26, 2022January 26, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Empiricism and the scientific method have had some positive impact on the practice of business. Most people recognize the market as a great external object of study, yet scientific impact on innovation is usually limited and relegated to the domain of hunches by analytic experts. For their part, business schools tend to crank out expert planners and analysts, but do not expressly delve into experimentation. Schrage thinks that is a mistake and writes this book…