326 Thurs
of Immanuel Velikovsky in the 1950s, UFOs in the 1960s, or creation
science in the 1980s, the slogan became an important weapon in the ar-
senals of those seeking the include ideas in or exclude them from the
realm of real science. J. Allen Hynek, celebrated by later generations of
UFO researchers as the founder of UFOlogy, used the rhetoric of scientifi c
method to defend his chosen fi eld of study from negative attacks by other
scientists. Still hopeful that a University of Colorado study of UFOs led by
the prominent physicist Edward Condon might approach the problem of
strange aerial phenomenon more seriously than had the Air Force during
the 1950s and mid- 1960s, Hynek celebrated the fact that at last the public
would be able “to see the scientifi c method applied thoroughly.”^67 Sadly,
such optimism quickly turned sour when Condon’s report dismissed UFOs
as illusions and not worth further study and Condon himself publicly
assaulted those who continued to believe in them. In answer, numerous
UFO advocates repeated Hynek’s later assertion that “ridicule is not part
of the scientifi c method.”^68 For skeptics, meanwhile, belief in strange ideas
like fl ying saucers “involved rejecting the scientifi c method and standards
of evidence and credibility.”^69
Aside from battles over what orthodox opponents increasingly labeled
“pseudoscience,” however, the invocation of scientifi c method seemed to
have declined somewhat during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The notion of scientifi c method assimilated new kinds of ideas. The work
of Karl Popper, who depicted scientifi c methodology as a logical technique
in which scientists tested theories by seeking to falsify their claims, pro-
vided a favorite defi nition of scientifi c method on all sides, particularly
among working scientists.^70 But it also endured more scrutiny. A small
spate of magazine articles appeared with titles along the lines of “Is There
a Scientifi c Method?”^71 The answer was generally “yes,” though it was
sometimes an anguished affi rmative. An author of one such article in a
1964 issue of the University of Toronto Quarterly suggested that “the scien-
tifi c method has become a sort of demi- god whose worshippers believe
that it is only by this method that truth may be known.” Nevertheless,
she could not reject either science or the scientifi c method entirely “for I
love and admire both of them and cannot help doing so since I am a child
of my own time.”^72
Such examination seemed to take a toll on the fl exibility of the term,
however. The 1968 edition of Teaching Science in Today’s Secondary Schools
lamented that “thousands of young people have memorized the steps”
of the scientifi c method as they commonly appeared in textbooks “and
chanted them back to their teachers while probably doubting intuitively
their appropriateness.”^73 The authors of this critique were not alone. His-