The scientific method, or better why scientific discoveries should not be treated as dogmas2/6/2021 Today’s post may seem to be disconnected from sustainability, but actually it has everything to do with it. To be sustainable it means to also understand the world around us better, in order to be better inhabitants. I will keep it short, Too often people take science as something that produces dogmas. ‘Science said it’ so must be true. So often, if we read in news articles that some scientist said something, then we believe that it must be true and that it will always be true. And well, even if we imagine that the journalist reported the scientist words truthfully, this is still not a good approach to science understanding Why? Because every scientific advance is simply a step. It’s not fake, of course, and usually a very rigorous process has been taken in order to make that step, but nothing stops another steps to be made that revolutions what the first step had found.
‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ - you must have heard that. But nothing stops a scientist from turning whatever it was that that giant found, upside down . To give you an example, a big ‘dogma’ has always been that your DNA is fixed from birth to death, but actually this is being challenged by new discoveries that the environment can play a role in changing the actual DNA (your genotype) and not just the appearance (your phenotype). It’s quite a big thing. Even I was thought at school that DNA was not changeable. But it appears.. it can be! And if we didn’t have big discoveries, then likely we would still live on a flat Earth, right? This year we heard a lot of science talks, willingly or not, because well.. virus and pandemic are inherently an object of scientific talk! But more often than not there would be contradicting advice coming and people that ‘stopped’ believing in science. In science there is often ‘conflicting’ advice (which were only made '''conflicting''' by politicians, who maybe are not so versed in how science actually works and took some things too literally, and then by journalists who translated it in ‘simple’ words in a very terrible way more often than not). Because one truth is not the overall truth and is not necessarily a truth forever, let's use a simple, everyday example. You start with observations. Maybe your toaster doesn’t work. So you wonder if there is something wrong with the electrics. You experiment by plugging another appliance (let's say your coffee maker) in the result is that it works. Means the wall plug is fine, and your hypothesis was wrong you say your toaster is broken but, maybe, the morning after the toaster works again maybe yesterday's it wasn't plugged in properly? so you try and plug it half way in it doesn't work you conclude that that was the problem and now you will always plug it in fully but then the following morning it doesn't work again maybe it is an old toaster and the plug is a bit temperamental so you change the fuse see where i am going ? I could keep going forever. And maybe never find out why the toaster works one day yes one day no, and just go buy a new one (and if that doesn't work again then give up on toast) The point, is that "science" is a never ending continuum, not a fixed end point. Surprise surprise. If you didn't knwo, the Earth isn’t flat, but it isn’t round either. It’s actually an ellipsoid and is always changing! And of course, this is just the first part, because after the scientific method produces results in line with the hypothesis, they have to be published, and this whole process (especially the experimental part, which can be done more or less rigorously) goes through peer-review - which can be more or less challenging depending on the outlet of your publication… but more on this another time!
1 Comment
Angela
2/8/2021 06:38:58 pm
Very good explanation about the value of the scientific method! I try to emphasize this when I have students write research designs.
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