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I'm not religious one bit, but amen (possibly because its a Sunday...)

The main thing taught to me at university, without it being formally taught, was to come to my own conclusions based on evidence.

It doesn't matter what the field is, it is relevant. The sad thing is, we don't need academics to teach it, merely to explain the evidence based on their observations.

Where the observations differ, further investigation and observations are required.

It isn't quite the scientific method in formality, but as someone not educated in sociology, or even the way in which academics interrogate each other (and their ideas) - it makes sense to me.