Since nothing is certain?

Question

I'm not a scientist but I'm just curious.

Since nothing is really certain in science, a lab test that proofed to be beneficial can only be made truth if time and time again it keeps turning out the same result. These tests has to be repeated as we progress in our scientific knowledge. Any scientific claim that refuses to be retested cannot be trusted.

Is this the way science should be? If so and if something is found to breach this method, what does it do to science. If the science community allows such practices to continue, what is there to hope for? This seems to be a problem in the scientific industries because of profit over science.

What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

You are correct in that science has no absolute certanties.
Things cannot be proven 100%.

This is a fundamental principle of the way science works:
- you start with an hypothesis (usually based on things you have been able to observe without performing experiments yet). The optimal situation here is to choose the *simplest* possible explanation for the known facts.
- then you design an experiment to *disprove* your hypothesis.
- you perform the experiment and check the results. If it does not disprove your hypothesis, then it has been strengthened. If it *does* disprove your hypothesis, then you re-think the hypothesis.
- then you start again, either testing another part of the same hypothesis, or testing a brand new hypothesis.

By this method, you must always be prepared for your hypothesis to be proven incorrect. But you are not disheartened: you now know that that idea is false (possibly you are the only one who knows that idea is false), and you have a *new* idea you can test before anyone else.

Scientific fraud *can* be a problem, but not a big one. Science is performed by humans, and humans are fallible. In a field which is highly competitive, the future of your job might depend on making an important (and profitable) discovery. This does not just happen in industry, but also in academia.
However, the idea of "peer review" is supposed to get around this. When you publish your results, you *must* publish the methods you followed too. This means others can try to copy your experiments, and if you lied or made a mistake, they will discover this. In fact, the more highly competitive the field you work in, the more likely this is to happen, as people will want to take advantage of the "wonderful new technique" you have discovered.
So lies and mistakes in science never last very long.

Think about it - if a company lied, and said it had discovered "free" energy of some sort, there would be a lot of interest. Even if the company refused to release the methods it used, it would soon be asked for demonstrations of the results. If the company fakes these cleverly, and manages to fool all the witnesses, then they will be asked to start powering things with this amazing "free energy".
Of course, they can't actually do this - it was all lies. So either they continue with an expensive fake (they can't charge more for the free energy than the other energy sources from before, can they?) and lose millions, or they admit their lie. It's just not worth their while.
_______________________________________________

PS:
I just found this, and it seemed relevant (and funny)

http://www.bigfatwhale.com/archives/bfw_292.html

Answer 2

The scientific method requires that you have a hypothesis about something, you test it, observe the results, and if need be you may change your hypothesis and retest.

Testing must be reproducible and verified to be accurate and correct otherwise it isn't science. What company was that a few years ago that claimed to have created a device that output more energy than it consumed? Anyway, when the big show came to prove it to members of the scientific community it conveniently didn't work.

This protects science in a way and is its foundation. Communities are set up to ensure that the research that is performed is validated. Any faulty results can lead to a huge mess as others use these results in their own experiments. Thankfully faulty results are weeded out by an evaluation by like-minded scientific individuals.

Answer 3

A case in point is the tobacco industry. For years, scientists and doctors were telling people just how bad cigarettes were for people ... the more they tested, the more harmful effects they found. But the tobacco industry hired its own scientists who challenged every study, questioned every finding, and in some cases designed research of their own to contradict those of mainstream scientists, and to repeat like a mantra "there is no *proof* that smoking is harmful" ... which technically is true since in science there is no "proof" of anything (as you say, *nothing* is ever certain). But to nicotine-addicted smokers, those words, coming from "scientists", were all they wanted to hear.

Eventually, mainstream science won out. Good science is relentless, and while it never claims that anything is ever absolutely "certain" ... nothing is ever "proven" ... it does eventually converge on a consensus. But meanwhile the tobacco-industry's scientists whose job it was just to cast *reasonable doubt* on all the bad publicity bought the industry some time ... a few more years of profits

... and people died as a result.

So now we're having a debate about global warming. Mainstream scientists are calling it a potentially grave problem, one that humans are contributing to, if not causing outright. But the oil and energy industry has hired its own scientists who challenge every study, question every finding, and in some cases design research of their own to contradict those of mainstream scientists, and to repeat like a mantra "there is no *proof* that global warming is harmful" ... which technically is true since in science there is no "proof" of anything (as you say, *nothing* is ever certain). But to oil-addicted voters, those words, coming from "scientists", are all they want to hear.

Eventually, mainstream science will win out, and they will converge on a consensus. (Many feel they have already.) But the job of the naysayer scientists is to cast "reasonable doubt" so that the politicians can justify not doing anything as long as there are some scientists saying there "is no *proof*". And the problem worsens.

The reason I wage my crusade against creationism is that it feeds the same inability for Americans to evaluate what scientists are saying. It doesn't matter if mainstream science has 100 scientists all saying the same thing, if the other side can produce just 1 scientist willing to contradict them, Americans looking for what they *want* to hear, will only hear that 1 lone scientist ... he's the one with the "truth", all the other 100 scientists are all wrong, or worse, engaging in a conspiracy.

It is only partly the scientist's fault. That 1 lone dissenter may be asking good questions, important questions. That kind of dissent is essential for keeping science honest.

But it is industry's (or in the case of evolution, fundamentalist religion's) willingness to promote the 1 lone dissenter as being "equal time" with the 100 mainstream scientists that is unforgiveable.

And it is American's willingness to believe the 1 lone dissenter because he's the one saying what they *want* to hear, and to completely disregard the other 100 as a result, that is the worst culprit.

Answer 4

"Absolute Truth" in science is the Holy Grail for all scientists.
The only way to obtain that sort of truth IS to experiment, over and over, and to find the answers all agree with one another.
Why does this sound like a conspiracy to you?
If someone told you that the sky was purple, wouldn't you go around and ask more than one other person which color they were seeing?
Of course, you would...