EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER18 Educational Research:The Hardest Science of All by David C.

passes for scientific methodology is a misrepresentation of what scientists do or ought to do.” The “evidence-based practices ” and “scientific research ” men-tioned over 100 times in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 are code words for randomized experiments, a method of re-search with which I too am much enamored. But to think that this form of research is the only “scientific ” approach to gaining knowledge—the only one that yields trustworthy evidence— reveals a myopic view of science in general and a misunderstand-ing of educational research in particular. Although strongly sup-ported in Congress, this bill confuses the methods of science with the goals of science. The government seems to be inappropriately diverging from the two definitions of science provided above by confusing a particular method of science with science itself. This is a form of superstitious thinking that is the antithesis of science