I have a new favourite word “Scientifish”.
I saqw it used on the TV show by Stephen Colbert. Even more interesting than the word itself is how it was used.
I’m somewhat at a loss to describe the method in words. Perhaps think of it as a scientific method that is diametrically opposite “THE scientific method”. Instead of hypothesis, experiment and results, we use a technique born of the TV interview. Much like in the TV series “You can’t ask that”.
Suppose you want to investigate a large subject. Perhaps you want to find the best possible description of the universe that can be conveyed in five minutes. To find such a description you use the “scientifish” method. Set up a sample space and data sources that are as orthogonal as possible. For the Universe this could be a sample space of, say: origin, size, planet, telescope, galaxy, supernova, quantum vacuum, etc. For each topic in this sample space ask a specific question, and as anecdotes come in follow the information in those anecdotes to follow up questions to investigate the most interesting aspects.
Geometrically, we can think of this as investigating the properties of an unknown function on a square by selecting points distant from each other and from the boundaries and investigating the function at each point by means of a random (or not qute random) walk.
On the Stephen Colbert show, the large topic was “personality”. By means of questions, anecdotes and follow up questions, cover almost the entire domain of a person’s personality. It worked statlingly well.
“Scientifish” as a method incorporates concepts of Socratean dialectic, Adlerian holistic, and Tree algorithm data structure.
I can see heaps of applications. In all sciences. It excels as a method for describing what exists, without the need to impose an artificial hypothesis on the system.