Why is Science Wrong so often?

Question

Bearing in mind that, in historical terms, it is only a short time ago that the most intelligent scientific minds firmly believed that the Universe revolved around the Earth. Also that the deciphering of the Human Genome was the final definitive step in human science – but has now been show to be just another skin of the onion.
It is not long ago that Science was investigating entropy and predicting the Heat Death of the Universe, That soon glaciers could be expected to advance over Regents Park London.
Recently Medical Science predicted that --- using antibiotics -- Gonorrhoea, Tuberculosis and many other plagues would be erased forever. Dr Ken Harvey, director of. Microbiology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia, where a particularly virulent strain of MRSA bacteria swept through the wards, said recently: 'We may, look back at the antibiotic era as just a passing. phase in the history of medicine, an era in which a great, natural resource was squandered and where the bugs proved smarter than the scientists. He is especially critical of 'doctors who constantly use broad-spectrum antibiotics an indiscriminate drug which kills a wide range of bugs in circumstances where they are unnecessary. " Broad spectrum, antibiotics are the refuge of the diagnostically 'destitute". he said.
Vaccination was to protect the young --- but has now been shown to be responsible for many types of Autism --- due to the Mercury included in many vaccines. A parent who said he believes his two autistic children were harmed by vaccines applauded Congress for requesting a new investigation. The parent, Jared Hansen of Framingham, said he thinks the CDC is reluctant to expose dangers of thimerosal because the agency is responsible for ensuring public acceptance of its vaccination program.

"They've proven far more willing to overstate the risks of disease and understate the danger of vaccination," Hansen said. "No one in their right mind can say that giving mercury intravenously is a smart thing to do."

Autism rates soared during the 1990s when thimerosal was most heavily used in childhood vaccines. Levels of mercury injected into infants were 120 times greater than federal safety limits for oral ingestion of mercury, congressmen wrote to the NIEHS.

Government officials asked manufacturers in 1999 to remove the mercury-based preservative from vaccines, but it is still used in flu and tetanus shots.

It has long been known that efforts to infect rats with Syphilis is useless. Now we have a Supermouse that simply kills off any attempts to inject it with Cancer. Its immune system is highly effective.
In view of the item on the Heat Death of the Universe , why are we now involved in a panic about Global Warming?. The “hole” in the atmosphere, supposedly getting bigger due to Refrigerator Gas , was only recently discovered . We have NO records of its expansion and contraction over some centuries , so how can we predict anything!.
Considering these few items ,culled at random , its is obvious that at any given moment Science is just a “ragbag” of postulates firmly based in a sea of sand.
Why then are scientists so well paid when Astrology is probably more firmly based than Astronomy --- and what exactly – is a Black Hole , the “Superstrings” that wander through our universe as if it were a Ghost , a Phantasm.

Answer 1

1) Because modern science is political, it is funded by people and organizations with an agenda.

2) Because it has become socially necessary for scientists to publish "new findings" in order to appear successful. So things are rushed.

3) Because science has largely become a "religion" based on "faith." If anyone challenges the commonly accepted theories (global warming, evolution, linear nature of time) they are black-balled and their research and evidence is ignored.

In short, science has lost its objectivity.

Answer 2

"
Bearing in mind that, in historical terms, it is only a short time ago that the most intelligent scientific minds firmly believed that the Universe revolved around the Earth.
"
Science got that right long before certain religious groups would publicly admit to being wrong about it.

"
Also that the deciphering of the Human Genome was the final definitive step in human science – but has now been show to be just another skin of the onion.
"
There is never any final definitive in science that is its strength, if new evidence comes along old ideas can be changed. This is in direct opposition to religion where things are the way the leaders say they are end of story, kill or lock up anyone who challenges.


A lot of the rest is the result of politics or commercialism getting in the way of or distorting the science. Or lay people being to lazy to learn enough about the science to understand it.
__________
Andre' B.

Answer 3

It is a very good question you ask, and you list a variety of interesting examples of how "science was wrong". I think the main problem you have is the differentiation between philosophical and sociological aspects of science.

Overall, science aims at the best possible explanation available, which eventually is modified or entirely abandoned once a better explanation model comes along. As such, we are constantly fine-tuning, getting a deeper understanding. Understanding however, is not to know truth; as Martin heidegger already showed, absolute truth is unattainable for us. But understanding can be nonetheless achieved. when we comprehend something, it becomes available to us, we can apply it to our lives and our situation. Similarly, science can help us in comprehending our experiences of the world and our lives in the world. But it cannot give us absolute statements that will forever remain true.

Even Karl Popper, who with falsification gave us a heuristically valuable, though at times too stringent philosophical demarkation of scientific versus non-scientific theories, held that we can never be certain of our theories. What we can be certain about is when we falsify something. (For example, you cannot say all swans are white based on all the observations you have had of swans, because such an inductive statement, as David Hume already pointed out, is not really logically necessary. But once you have seen a black swan, you can with confident say that NOT ALL swans are white. Also, Popper's philosophy has its own problems, but that's a differnt point...)

I fear your problem is your expectation of science to provide absolute knowledge of truth, which is nothing it can achieve. You seem to suggest that only if there were absolute truth revealed by science would it be acceptable to you. That is a very metaphysical position that will leave you high and dry. Your suggestion that astronomy is less firmly based in fact than astrology is a case in point. To call scientific models phantasms is a misunderstanding of science as much as of phantasms.

But your question has another, equally important aspect, at which another answer in here already pointed, namely the political and sociological nature of the business science. Very often, scientists make strong predictive statements, such as the ones you quote. To understand the motivation for big announcements of that sort, you have to understand how the science business works. You have to get research money, and for that you need to loby your science. So, you make statements like a used-car dealer in order to sell your product. Moreover, there is a very personal motivation there; by boosting the importance of your research, you can make yourself appear more important.

Perhaps it would be helpful to differentiate between the sociology and the philosophy of science. If you do so, I think your problem will become a lot less confusing and more easy to answer. Furthermore, I suggest you read up on the philosophy of science so that you can appreciate more what it is that science really can do and does. I am certain you will find science less frustrating and far less threatening then.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

First off, there are countless example os science being 100% right and provable. The Autism link you site is an unknown that asn't been studied, and when it is, the link will probably not be there. Being that in the US there are more food preservatives used than the rest of the world combined there could just as easily be a link there too.

Finaly your supposition that Astrology is more firmly rooted than Astronomy is totally insane. Astrology is vague on purpose, Astronomy has provided countless scientific breakthroughs that you couldn't list here even if you tried. There is no possablity that one real scientificly proveable fact has ever come from astrology.

Answer 5

Because science is not about knowing things. It is about the search for knowledge. It is not the destination, it is the journey. The one thing you can say for sure, is that everything science "knows" will be shown to be, at least in some detail, incorrect in the future. But refining, correcting and expanding whatever knowledge we have is what science is all about.

Answer 6

Are you asking a question or making a statement?

Science asks the most difficult questions. The answers are not guaranteed to be correct.

Rather like here...

Answer 7

Science is wrong sometimes because scientists DEDUCT from their findings without checking further.
Also because man thinks that if he will abide in his own understanding and knowledge, leaving GOD out of Science, he will be able to get away with it....

Answer 8

Science isn't perfect... Science must evolve to achieve its excellence. Science wrong so often to corrects its mistakes and makes it better for futures sake of humanity.

Answer 9

Why is Science Wrong so often?
Deduction is straight forward. With induction you have to guess. Science is done very often with the trial and error method.
In my website
http://members.home.nl/fd-r/
I explain why the use of temperature is completely wrong, an error of about 200 years, still existing. Please give a reaction to [e-mail]

Answer 10

At least science theories are open to the possibility of being wrong, whereas religious dogma is only open to the possibility of science being wrong.