The Scientific Method

There’s the question that’s been put out there in the past:

If there was one thing that you could pass onto a new civilization that knew nothing about the world, universe or anything, what would you (with all of 21st century knowledge at your disposal) pass along?

One famous scientist (who I can’t remember at the moment for the life of me) answered the idea of the atom, that all matter is made up of tiny particles (and so on and so forth).

My answer would be the idea of conducting the scientific method.  Basically that you can discover things most effectively by testing, creating a hypothesis, testing that hypothesis to see if it holds for all situations, and passing knowledge onto all peers to be reviewed and critically examined.

I see modern day society and think that so many people lack these basic critical thinking skills that if that could have been developed and imparted in the first steps of society a lot of modern grief could have been avoided.

But I won’t get off on a tirade.  How would you answer the question?