The Scientific Method

I wanted to talk a little bit about the scientific method, as I touched on it in both the previous posts.  There is a common misunderstanding (wilful or otherwise) that science lurches back and forward from one position to another - and thus you don't have to believe what it's saying right now, if you don't want to.  Now it's true that science is always evolving, that it isn't dogmatic and that it's always questioned and tested.  This is of course a GOOD THING (How to be Topp capitals).  But science generally builds on what has gone before, it doesn't tear it down.  As Newton said "I can only see so far because I stand on the shoulders of giants".

Here's an example from my first piece about Impossible Expectations, a quote from Trump transition team member Anthony Scaramucci

"There was an overwhelming science that the Earth was flat. And there was an overwhelming science that [...] we were the center of the world. A hundred percent, you know, we get a lot of things wrong in the scientific community. You and I both know that."

Taking his first example, no, there was not "an overwhelming science" that the Earth was flat.  It was what people believed.  We like to think we're much cleverer than primitive societies, but as Newton said again, that's only because we stand on the shoulders of giants.  If no one had ever told us, most of us would instinctively believe that the Earth was flat.  It looks flat.  A few might wonder about how ships drop below the horizon but that's about it.

People believed the Earth was flat *until* a very clever man called Eratosthenes applied the scientific method.  He devised and conducted an experiment [1] that would have one result if the Earth was flat, and another if it was a sphere.  He performed it and not only demonstrated that the Earth was a sphere [2], he estimated its diameter with remarkable accuracy.  Prior to that there was no "scientific position", because no one had done any science to try to find out.

Similarly, people believed that the Sun rotated around the Earth for a long time because it wasn't possible to perform an experiment to test it.  Even when Copernicus came up with his heliocentric theory, while it clearly fitted observation in a much simpler way (no need to screw around with epicycles), it wasn't possible to test it until telescopes improved and people like Brahe and Kepler could make the necessary measurements.  Once the scientific method of theory, prediction and experiment was able to take effect, it solved the problem.

For a final example, going back to Newton, while Newtonian physics was overtaken by Einstein, it's important to stress that Newton wasn't *wrong*.  His theories of motion were perfectly consistent with what he could observe at the time, and they work perfectly well until you approach the very small (subatomic scale), very large (galactic scale) and/or very fast (the speed of light).  If an Einstein had come up with his theories in the 18th century, there would have been no way to test them.  By the latter 20th century though, we could do things like fly atomic clocks around on planes and see gravitational lensing in action to test and verify his theoretical work [3] [4]

So while there are occasions where accepted science is wrong, they're quite rare and you have to do better than "science once thought the Earth was flat".  People thought the Earth was flat.  Some still do, although most modern "Flat Earth” types just enjoy arguing about it because they have nothing better to do.  A better example might be Lysenko's work in the Soviet Union, which certainly wasn't accepted worldwide and had a large element of ideology thrown in.

One reason for the popular conception that science “keeps changing its mind” is the way tabloids, particularly the Mail and Express which are notorious for this, like to pick up and sensationalise individual studies (rather than the scientific consensus).  Every now and then a study “reveals” that chocolate cures cancer, or causes cancer.  Why oh why can't these scientists make their minds up?  Because you're cherry-picking individual studies that are, by and large, not confirmed by the scientific method of peer-review, repeatability and use of proper sample sizes.  Unfortunately, by the time this is disconfirmed, the papers have moved on to the next half-arsed study about how drinking wine prevents Alzheimers, or causes it.  All fun and games until you have a situation like the Wakefield paper on vaccines and autism which has caused untold damage despite having been quickly and fully refuted by the scientific community.

Sooo, in conclusion, science does not have to be taken as gospel.  It can, and indeed should, be subject to constant testing, review and improvement.  However, the science we have at the moment is the result of huge amounts of continuous research by smart, qualified people.  Experts.  If you do want to contradict them, the onus is on you.  The burden of proof is on you, and you have to do a lot better than just saying “nuh-uh”.  I'll expand on this in the next post about Arguments From Authority.

[1] It really is very clever, I recommend looking it up.
[2] Yes alright, an oblate spheroid.  Close enough for someone in the 3rd century BC.
[3] And indeed the recent discovery of gravitational waves is another vindication of an Einsteinian prediction.
[4] Another one is that Satnavs wouldn't work if they didn't correct for relativistic effects of time, inasmuch as they work anyway, mine keeps sending me down dead ends :(.