Scientific Method and \"The Stone Tape\" Scientific

Scientific Method and "The Stone Tape"

Scientific Method and the Stone Tape

The scientific method is a procedure that was developed over centuries to organize the steps in the procedures of scientific investigations. These steps were designed so that the results gathered by scientists would be considered to be verifiable and repeatable, and therefore correct. By using the scientific method, scientists use observations and hypothesis, in order to predict the outcome of an experiment, then conduct that experiment and draw conclusions from the observations of the experiment. ("Understanding and Using the Scientific Method") In other words, the scientific method sees something, hypothesizes about it, tests that hypothesis through experimentation, and draw conclusions from those experimental results. It is used because it demands strict adherence to the steps, and therefore the results can be accepted as real and conclusive. However, many scientists do not always follow the scientific method, and because of this the results of their science is often flawed. One example of scientists not adhering to the steps of the scientific method can be found in the 1972 BBC broadcast entitled The Stone Tape, which involves the story of a group of fictional scientists who investigate and experiment paranormal activities in the hope of discovering a new recording medium. (BBC)

Nigel Kneale, in his The Stone Tape, actually expands on an idea first postulated by a Cambridge archaeologist T.C. Lethbridge who theorized that the "physical environment acting as a recording medium for primal emotions…." (Green) In the story a group of scientists were using an ancient building in their research when they observed the sounds of screams. At first they hypothesized they were the sounds of ghosts, but a night of experimentation dispelled that erroneous belief. It is afterward that the scientists then put forward the hypothesis that the sounds were recordings from within the stones of the building itself which acted as an "organic recording medium which plays back directly to biochemical receptors in the brain." (Green) In order to test this hypothesis, the scientists used all sorts of electronic recording equipment in order to capture the sound they "heard," but to no avail. And while one researcher claimed to find messages buried inside the background noise of the recordings, the project is ultimately ended.

At first when the scientists "heard" the sound of screams, they observed a phenomenon, fulfilling the first step in the scientific method. They then hypothesized that it was the sound of ghosts, following the second step. When they predicted that they could record the sounds, they followed the third step, and recording the sounds, or experimenting, was the fourth step. When they could not discover the sounds on the recording they were forced to accept the conclusion that the sounds were not generated from ghosts. It would seem that the scientific method was followed and proved that the noises they heard were not ghosts. However, the scientists then diverted from the scientific method in order to study a strange and inconclusive theory.