When I stroll through Kroger aisles, I encounter a slew of teas, supplements and beauty products that are supposedly scientifically proven to improve my health. But these products have rarely improved my lifestyle. While I used to add them to my cart, I no longer buy their claims and now think twice about what it means for a product to be backed by science. The imprecise and often-manipulative use of scientific language has permeated our everyday lives, so much so that “scientific proof” has lost its meaning.
The same problem of co-opting scientific language extends beyond consumer products and into higher education. First, to understand what science is, we must understand what science is not. Science is not a monolithic token of credibility for anyone’s claims, and simply referencing it does not provide automatic validation for claims, as science itself does not offer absolute proof or definitive answers. The discipline is a series of hypotheses and theories, such as evolution or Einstein’s general relativity, that remain valid until they are proven invalid. Rather than a monolithic “what,” science is the process of critical inquiry and constructive disagreement, of creating preliminary assumptions and revising them with further findings.
No one scientific finding is final, yet students and scholars within the social sciences sometimes defer to scientific language to provide a sense of absolute certainty for their claims. They misapply scientific concepts into their own disciplines or take findings out of context.
In communications and management classes, some professors often present one study as a universal and fundamental aspect of human behavior. An individual finding about the inaccuracy of manager feedback or the productivity of task specialization becomes a widespread truth, and the overreliance on a single study leaves no room for discussion in the class on its limitations or separate studies that offer a different perspective.
In addition, from a young age, students learn about the scientific method and the importance of finding a scientific consensus to provide support for hypotheses. The presentation of individual studies chips away at this search for consensus, leaving students with findings taken out of context from the broader literature.
For instance, some classes at the University of Michigan require students to take personality tests, such those offered in organizational studies and psychology. Many leading scholars in these fields champion the Five-Factor Model personality test as scientifically valid, yet this test still falls victim to the same critique of other tests. Personality is context-dependent, and a student’s extraversion or agreeableness is far from fixed, as the test suggests. However, the lack of classroom discussion about the drawbacks of these tests leaves students with false perceptions about unchangeable traits or the ability to categorize personality into clean classifications.
While some tests and studies mislead students due to the absence of further discussion or context, others misinform students due to methodology issues. For instance, every business student at the University learns about the Michigan Model of Leadership as a framework for leadership in corporate settings. The problem stems from the model’s origins in studies about factory workers, not white-collar employees. By presenting this model, scholars generalize the findings to less relevant workplace contexts and generalize scientific language without the proper methodology.
The MMoL also demonstrates an underlying perception among some social scientists that adding scientific or quantitative elements makes a discipline more credible. For example, in history, the rising popularity of cliometrics has encouraged scholars to integrate economic models and graphs when explaining historical events. While cliometrics can add value to historical scholarship, this subdiscipline falls under scrutiny for its overreliance on quantitative data over qualitative sociocultural observations and for its limited applicability in pre-capitalist or non-Western societies.
Despite the clash between science and the social sciences, the two disciplines can co-exist, both in practice and in principle. For example, when dating historical artifacts, scholars rely on relative and absolute dating. Leveraging best-in-class tools, historians and archaeologists remain aware that even their best guess may be inaccurate and that they will never achieve absolute certainty regarding the age or purpose of an artifact. The acknowledgement of uncertainty demonstrates a commitment to rigorous methodology and scientific inquiry.
While no study will be perfect, a good yet imperfect study is still valuable. The FFM, while flawed and incomplete on its own, is still among the most reliable frameworks that currently exists to analyze personality. However, the tendency to overrely on the results of personality tests and treat them as infallible interferes with the skepticism and critical analysis that is central to the application of scientific methods. Even the most rigorous findings will be subject to criticism, and we must question each result, even studies that we consider as the current best. Therefore, as students, we can draw value from studies while recognizing them as a step below the absolute truth, asking questions and contextualizing them within the broader literature.
In addition to identifying the limitations of research that we study in classes, we can also investigate the broader literature or ask our professors if some methodologies are valid. For the non-STEM students among us, the University offers a variety of science classes that can help clarify the scientific method and teach us how to apply it to our own fields. Developing scientific literacy is important regardless of major, and skepticism and curiosity are critical tools in building this skill.
Whether I walk through Kroger or read another study in my classes, I have become more wary about claims that purport scientific proof without scientific reasoning. Even as a non-STEM student, I recognize the importance of inquiry and critical thinking in all disciplines. Science becomes less of an all-proving dogma, and the skills of scientific literacy equip students for the lab, classroom, grocery store and beyond.
Sarah Zhang is a Senior Opinion Editor who writes about campus culture, higher education and history. She can be reached at sarzhang@umich.edu.