The Scientific Way

Apologies for not posting yesterday. The reason is simple. In everyone's life there are some days known as wasted and yesterday was one of those days for me. Let's not get into wasting time on something that's already categorized as wasted.

As I mentioned in my posts "An encounter with the World of Philosophy", I am into the world of philosophies which leads to knowledge creation. We start with questioning what is science? I'd like to take some excerpts and try bringing myself closer to what is scientific way? Scientific way is specific aspects.

First, every attempt that claims to be scientific is based on explicit relationship between ideas and empirical observation and an attempt to be relevant to reality. Second, using a scientific approach necessarily means a conscious application of reasonably clear formulated rules. Third, using a scientific approach means that the scientist acknowledges that every member of society has a a legitimate right to protections form the public scrutiny of his or her private life.

Being a scientist and creating knowledge

It is not necessary for you to be a scientist in order to create knowledge or being a part of process of knowledge creation. A key difference between knowledge created by the scientific method compared with any other method (say as a consultant or any other kind of investigator) is that some kinds of studies do not present their methods and result for the public and critical scrutiny by other creators of knowledge. Both these ways of creating knowledge can be treated as Methodology for Creating Business Knowledge.

"Practiced" and "Reconstructed" Logic

Practiced logic is the path that researchers/consultants/investigators follow de facto.Reconstructed logic is presentation of this path.

The Debate Continues 2...

Before I dive into discussing the eternal question whether Marketing is Science or Art. I'd like to share something that I've not felt through out my life. I'd like to introduce you to professor Ashok Pratap Arora. Professor Arora is one of the best professors I've met in my academic life. The genius of the man is questioning the most simplest terms which we take for granted. Questions like "What is science?; What is the role of logic in science?" He gets his student think about the challenges of marketing from the very basic of the subject itself. His style of teaching is intriguing and hence creating the curiosity that you want to get rid of right after the class. The persona of professor creates magic in the thought generation process of his students.

It's so easy to say that marketing is applied science. However, how do you distinguish pure science from applied science. And then the debate that "Are all pure sciences absolutely pure in nature?" I came out of his class at around 10:40 AM in the morning but I still feel I am in that room trying to understand the world from the very basic. And I suppose this is what is the purpose of a professor. The purpose inducing self learning in his students by giving them the curiosity to ponder the unknown. And trust me in Prof Arora's class everything (unless he chooses to explain something) is unknown. I am having my fingers crossed to prepare well for the next class but I know I'll go into the class with immense amount of unknown to be explored.

I'd have loved to answer the various questions I posed in the post The Debate Continues... but I guess I need to do a lot of reading to justify the answers and importantly gather enough courage to defend my point of view on the eternal debate.

I promise that there will be multiple post coming up in the series The Debate Continues...Let me conclude by sharing something.

Every Discipline takes something from other disciplines and so has Marketing. However, Marketing has grown so tall in stature that it's time for Marketing to contribute to other disciplines. Most important thing to remember is that Emphasis of Marketing is on "Exchange".

The Debate Continues...

I am back with the ongoing question of whether "Marketing is Science or Art?" This is a question that's under scrutiny since the inceptions of Marketing as a discipline.

Keep watching this space for more.

Coming Soon......

I'd have tried giving my point of view on the above debatable topic. However, it deserves a dedicated separate post and hence I am going to publish it as part of my next post.