difference between science and scientists
Answers
FOLLOW ME....
hope it helps you
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS
Recently, I’ve posted a few blogs dealing with various aspects of personal opinion and confirmation bias and how the combination can, to an outsider, make any individual, in certain circumstances, look like a complete idiot. That even includes scientists, sorry to say, yet “science” as a whole has an unprecedented record of accuracy over time, regardless of what climate change deniers and creationists say. If scientists can be as personally biased and opinionated as all the rest of us, how does “science” end up with such a long-term record of accuracy?
There’s one basic reason, and that is that the modern structure of science, if you will, requires proof, and all the proof that is submitted is subject to scrutiny and attack from all quarters. What emerges from this often withering barrage almost always turns out – in time – to be more correct and more accurate than that which preceded it. That’s not to say that, upon occasion, it hasn’t taken the scientific establishment time to get things right, but eventually better techniques and better thought proved that plate tectonics was correct, just as, regardless of the creationists, there’s an overwhelming body of evidence in favor of evolution, and that relativity provides a more accurate picture of the universe than did Newton, or the Ptolemaic theorists.
But there are several “problems” with the scientific method. First, establishing more accurate knowledge, information, or theories takes time, and often large amounts of resources, as well as winnowing through and considering a fair amount of uncertainty at times. Second, it requires reliance on data and proof; mere opinion is not sufficient. Third, it’s not as set in stone as human beings would like. The early Greek scientists had a fair idea about the earth and the moon, but their measurements and calculations were off. As methods, equipment, and techniques improved, so did the measurements, and Newton did far better, and his methods and theories result in a high degree of accuracy for most earth-bound measurements and systems, but Einstein and his successors have provided an even more accurate explanation and more accurate measurements. And fourth, at present, the scientific method isn’t absolutely precise in predicting specific future results of massive interacting inputs.
That lack of absolute precision in dealing with future events often causes people to doubt science as a whole, even though its record is far better than any other predictor or prediction system. Part of its accuracy comes from the fact that science as a structure adapts as more information becomes available, but some people regard this adoption of new data and systems as unsettling, almost as if they were saying, “If science is so good, why can’t you get it right the first time?” An associated problem is that science is far more accurate as a descriptor than a predictor, and most people subconsciously assume that the two are the same.
Even so, one could easily adapt Churchill’s statement about democracy to science, in saying that it’s the poorest way of describing the universe and predicting how things will happen – except for any other way that’s ever been tried. And that’s because the structure of modern science is greater than any individual scientist.