Episode 63: The Scientific Method

Explaining the scientific method (or: how scientists think) as a basis for further discussions on the podcast.

This and the following episode of The Private Citizen are two parts of a whole. To lay the groundwork for further discussion next time, we shall first try to understand how scientists think. To this end, I shall do my best to explain the scientific method to you. In the next episode, we will then put this into the context of our current society and one of its biggest weaknesses, as I see it.

This episodes follows in the footsteps of episodes 34 and 60, where I explained the concepts of socialism and cyber war in that it is a similar format of explaining a basic idea as groundwork for further discussions on the podcast.

Explaining the Scientific Method #

These are the handwritten notes I prepared for this episode:

Producer Feedback #

I response to me asking on the show how Russians feel about the West continuing to harp on the stereotypical “Russian hacker”, I had some responses from Russian listeners. What I’m reading between the lines here is that some are pissed off by this, but in general there seems to be no “Russian viewpoint”, per se, because Russia is very large with a very large and diverse society. If anything, politics in Russia seem to be as polarised as they are in the UK, the US and Germany.

On the Discord, arivatana said:

I’m dying inside as I listen to the last two episodes. The university I work at (in the IT support department) is changing the students email structure to Exchange, praising the functionalities of Office 365 and using Teams and Zoom as the main tools to give lectures.

…to which Soup replied:

The truth is, as end users, we like integrated experiences and no one else does a proper office suite. And you’re using PowerPoint and Word and Excel anyway, so… Only one way you can go for a competitive rate, too.

If you have any thoughts on the things discussed in this or previous episodes, please feel free to contact me. In addition to the information listed there, we also have an experimental Matrix room for feedback. Try it out if you have an account on a Matrix server. Any Matrix server will do.

Toss a Coin to Your Podcaster #

I am a freelance journalist and writer, volunteering my free time because I love digging into stories and because I love podcasting. If you want to help keep The Private Citizen on the air, consider becoming one of my Patreon supporters.

You can also support the show by sending money to via PayPal, if you prefer.

This is entirely optional. This show operates under the value-for-value model, meaning I want you to give back only what you feel this show is worth to you. If that comes down to nothing, that’s OK with me. But if you help out, it’s more likely that I’ll be able to keep doing this indefinitely.

Thanks and Credits #

I like to credit everyone who’s helped with any aspect of this production and thus became a part of the show. This is why I am thankful to the following people, who have supported this episode through Patreon and PayPal and thus keep this show on the air: Georges, Butterbeans, Michael Mullan-Jensen, Jonathan M. Hethey, Niall Donegan, Dave, Steve Hoos, Shelby Cruver, Vlad, Jackie Plage, 1i11g, Philip Klostermann, Jaroslav Lichtblau, Kai Siers, ikn, Michael Small, Fadi Mansour, Dirk Dede, Bennett Piater, Joe Poser, Matt Jelliman, David Potter, Larry Glock, Mika, Martin, Dave Umrysh, tobias, MrAmish, RikyM, drivezero, m0dese7en, avis, Jonathan Edwards, Barry Williams, Sandman616, Neil, Captain Egghead, Rizele, D and Iwan Currie.

Many thanks to my Twitch subscribers: Mike_TheDane, Galteran, m0dese7en_is_unavailable, Halefa, l_terrestris_jim and Flash_Gordo.

I am also thankful to Bytemark, who are providing the hosting for this episode’s audio file.

Podcast Music #

The show’s theme song is Acoustic Routes by Raúl Cabezalí. It is licensed via Jamendo Music. Other music and some sound effects are licensed via Epidemic Sound. This episode’s ending song is Ctrl Alt Del by Milva.