From Ignorance to Knowing With Science

What we call science when we first learn it in school or hear about it on the news is often some facts about a disease or how plants grow. It is actually not science, but the "facts" resulting from the scientific process. And, it is not even facts. It is the result of the experiments with what is considered acceptable error. Ideally, it is done with the best and most accurate equipment available, but the first microscopes of hundreds of years ago that could barely see a bacterium are no match compared to the transmission electron microscope with spherical aberration correction that can see atoms with high resolution. 

Just as scientific equipment has gotten much better over the years, so have the scientific methods. That is to say, the way that the experiments are performed has also gotten better. The people doing the scientific experiments, scientists, have learned how to produce repeatable results, and more importantly, have learned if the results can be trusted. 

There is always error. That is expected, and it is okay. The errors could be due to the measurement accuracy of the equipment. Just as people are different from each other, samples being measured might be different. That sample variation can also lead to measurement differences, which is another type of error. Errors can also be caused by operator mistakes. Sam was up late, has a terrible headache, and was distracted by noise in the lab. He made a mistake and wrote down the wrong reading. And, errors can be from an unknown source. Gremlins. Nobody knows what happened, but the experiment did not work, behaved much differently than before, or it's just weird today. It happens. So scientists always perform the experiments over and over and over. 

Sometimes unexplained errors have led to amazing discoveries such as the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming when some mold got into his petri dishes of bacteria. Serendipity — a chance discovery. Minor discrepancies that cannot be explained by the knowledge of the time have led to entirely new scientific theories that explained the universe more accurately. Albert Einstein developed the theory of general relativity to explain a minuscule difference in Mercury's orbit of only 43 seconds per century! That led to an understanding of the warping of space-time by gravity.

In other words, the "errors" were not errors at all. The existing knowledge and theories had just not developed enough to explain the phenomenon. 

Why is the light that color? Why do plant leaves change color in the fall? How do dreams work? What happens to our bones as we age? Since there are many ways that something can be explained, scientists always question how knowledge has been gained in the past, and how are experiments being done now. After years of often tedious and difficult work the results of the experiments are published, if good enough, in what are called peer-reviewed journals. In other words, the quality of the work, the assumptions, the conclusions, and the methodology is judged by other scientists that are experts in that area. If it is not good enough, it may never see the light of day. 

Since there can be many ways to explain a phenomenon, error is not uncommon, and some experiments are better than others, scientists don't just trust each other's explanation. They argue — sometimes fiercely. They search for proof — proof as best described by the standards of scientific exploration of the time. And, if it looks good, and if they are in the same field, they'll try it themselves to see if they get the same results. 

Many people don't understand how science can be trusted if there is error, or scientists don't agree, or they keep telling us different things. Unfortunately, it is a general misunderstanding of how science works. Even though the scientific processes used today are very rigorous and thorough, mistakes are easy to make, and the knowledge can grow slowly. However, it is self-correcting, and the discoveries and inventions that result from exploration and discovery are the treasures that fuel growth.