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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Volume 32, No. 18. July 30, 1969

Warren Berryman reflects on

Warren Berryman reflects on

The term scientific refers to a method or a way. This implies not only a methodology but also a stated end. It can be said that a dispassionate look at the facts will result in a scientific end: a hypothesis. This is a casuistic pulling of the chicken before the egg. This is impossible as dispassionate men lack sufficient motivation to assemble necessary facts, On the other hand, a motivation disqualifies the man as a dispassionate scientist. I maintain, that before a method is applied, an end must be slated. The end docs not result from a method applied with the motivation of a goal fixe. To apply a scientific method to politics would result in social engineering towards a Utopian end. The end would not be that of society but that of the social engineer.

While scientific methods may at times be successfully employed in the study of politics there are dangerous in the implementation of politics, Systems for analysis seldom remain simply that. The system of analysis is merely a simplification of the political structure to enable men to understand its workings more easily. Too often this tool for study becomes entrenched in the minds of those in power, an it becomes, rather than a frame work with which they analyse, a framework that is forced to fit on to the elements of society.

Scientific study deals in common denominators. The natural world is broken down into is an attempt to simplify, to clarify, and categorise. Science has reduced physical world to the point where man is master of nature. The political scientist, like the natural scientist, possesses the same tiny pigeon-holing intellect.