Scientific Truth
The following was posted as a comment to LAT on "Science Fiction".
It is just not that simple. “Scientific Truth” is a rare jewel to find. Jonathan Duffy, BBC Online reporter, explains this well in his piece, “Faking it: Where science goes wrong”. Duffy points out that most, 90%, of what is printer in scientific research journals turns out to be “wrong”. This does not sound like “truth”. This is how science works, researcher after researcher constantly revisiting this issue or that. Sometime the original conclusions are supported, sometimes they are not.
Even Newton’s Laws of Motion are not exempted from the possibility that they may be wrong. Einstein proved this.
“Scientific Truth” is hard to find and almost impossible to prove. The system is just too large for us to completely understand.
I am not saying I have any real insight on the current debate concerning grazing, but the point I want to make is:
Be careful believing that anyone or any party has a complete understanding of “Scientific Truth”.
It is just not that simple. “Scientific Truth” is a rare jewel to find. Jonathan Duffy, BBC Online reporter, explains this well in his piece, “Faking it: Where science goes wrong”. Duffy points out that most, 90%, of what is printer in scientific research journals turns out to be “wrong”. This does not sound like “truth”. This is how science works, researcher after researcher constantly revisiting this issue or that. Sometime the original conclusions are supported, sometimes they are not.
Even Newton’s Laws of Motion are not exempted from the possibility that they may be wrong. Einstein proved this.
“Scientific Truth” is hard to find and almost impossible to prove. The system is just too large for us to completely understand.
I am not saying I have any real insight on the current debate concerning grazing, but the point I want to make is:
Be careful believing that anyone or any party has a complete understanding of “Scientific Truth”.
2 Comments:
I think it is hard for anybody to disagree that there is a rather large faction of the Republican Party that has declared war on science. The point isn't that one side or another knows "scientific truth" the point is that one side is willing to accept and nurture the scientific community, the other side is willing to go to unbelievable levels to undermine the scientific community. A friend of mine worked for a Republican anti-global warming group, and one time I asked her if she could tell me any scientists who disagreed with global warming, and interesting the two names she gave me happened to be of people working for the American Petrolium Institute and a coal mining interest group, now what could they possibly want to oppose the idea of global warming for? It is about outright hostility to any science they disagree with and going to any length to undermine it. Like the often attack on evolution, that it is just a "theory" and creation and intelligent design are just other theories.
What is the "scientific truth" here? That when 12th graders in this country rank 16th out of 21 countries in science test scores, it's not the time to declare war on science.
My thought on this is that at least science works to find the truth.
There are many religious groups who refuse to believe any truth other than one written for them centuries ago.
Can there be a happy medium?
People working to find truth through science while taking moral direction from the bible?
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