Four Myths About Science, and Why They're Not True
Myths about science are inevitable, but all it takes to clear them up is a little explanation. Here are the facts behind four of 'em
Science doesn't necessarily have to be difficult, but like most myths about science, this one seems to be firmly entrenched in our culture. How you feel about the subject often has to do with your exposure to it, as well as previous social programming -- so the fact that there are so many myths isn't really that surprising.
One amusing farce is, for example, that women aren't genetically as scientific as men. But that's just so much bunk, as ladies like Marie Curie, Jane Goodall, and Lynn Margulies might point out. Want to hear some more bunk, and the truth that lies behind it all? Here's the skinny on four more science myths.
Myth 1: Science is just another kind of faith
This myth about science can be true on a personal level, though it isn't on a general one. For example, while your Humble Writer may take it on faith that quarks exist, never having seen one, he is assured that they've been mathematically described and detected by real scientists.
The biggest difference between science and faith is that scientific precepts are testable; in fact, they must be to be considered scientific at all. Conversely, articles of faith are received knowledge that, for good or ill, discourages questioning altogether.
Myth 2: Science can explain everything
Not yet, and probably not never. This is no more than a statement of faith, another comforting myth about science. It's nice to believe, and in fact various pundits have claimed that we know just about everything there is to know on more than one occasion -- inevitably they're embarrassingly wrong.
Case in point: quantum physics. At the end of the 19th century, some scientists claimed we had the basics of physics down pat already, and we're now just filling in the details. Then along came quantum theory, a completely new understanding of the physical universe. It's all very confusing, but it works very well.
But it's yet, another myth about science to think that even quantum theory, as accurate as it seems, tells us everything about the universe. For example, it's still impossible to know both the position and velocity of a particle simultaneously. And that formulation is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle... developed way back in 1927.
Myth 3: Scientists are always objective
If only this were true! No, they're just as human as the rest of us. Some scientists cherry-pick facts to fit their favorite theories, instead of altering their theories to fit the facts. Others fudge data, or let their beliefs keep them from accepting scientific reality when it stares them in the face.
While some scientists are willing to recant when proven wrong, many aren't. It's been said that old scientific paradigms pass away only when the last scientists that champion them do so. Otherwise, this myth about science and its practitioners would be true, and that's definitely not the case.
Myth 4: Scientific laws are absolute and precise.
No, they're not; nor should they be. The whole idea behind scientific laws (or axioms, or theories, or whatever you want to call them) is that they're generalizations -- they offer a best guess based on observation. However, they leave space for new observations that can prove, disprove, or modify them.
Which brings us to the point of science versus faith again; scientific theories or hypotheses can be disproved, while faiths can't. While it would be convenient to have utter faith in what science has to say, that would be dangerously misleading. And that makes it one of our more insidious myths about science.
