What is Science?

People have questions and they want answers. Fortune tellers, religious leaders, and members of the science community are in the business of providing answers. Each group has its own niche of the question answering business: fortune tellers predict the future for individuals, religious leaders have answers to general questions regarding the afterlife and how someone should conduct their present life so as to benefit in the afterlife, while scientists are restricted to answering only the questions regarding the physical reality.

A wise fortune teller will either find out insider information on their client or keep their answers vague so that if they are wrong their answers can be reinterpreted so that it does not necessary seem that way. Religious leaders have it a little easier since it is impossible for a dead person to report on the status of the afterlife. Real science deserves greater respect since real scientific beliefs must make predictions such that they are held accountable by the evidence. At least that is the way it is suppose to work and that is the way it would work, if not for people both outside and inside of mainstream science burring the definition of science.

It might seem that there are immoveable boundaries between these different answer providers, but this is not so. While science is not interested in getting into either the fortune telling business or the business of giving advice about the afterlife, these other answer providers are interested in providing answers regarding the physical reality. The advantage of adding some truth to their otherwise unaccountable answers is that it makes their answers seem more credible.

These pseudo sciences make inroads into the niche of answering questions regarding the physical reality because, truth be told, many people prefer to be given popular answers rather than correct answers.

In contrast to the non-sciences, real science is held accountable to the physical evidence and this accountability often restricts science to beliefs that are not popular.

For example, people were not happy when Copernicus, Kepler, Bruno, and Galileo presenting evidence supporting the assertion that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Instead of being in the center of the universe, as people would like to believe, we were just revolving around a typical star that was just one of billions upon billions of stars.

Likewise people are not happy about the Theory of Evolution. Instead of human beings having a separate and thus superior ancestry, discoveries regarding our genetic code shows us that we have far more in common with the other animals of the planet than what we originally believed.

Through radioactive dating methods scientists have determined that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Some religious people wonder what would be the point of the Earth existing for so long when mankind’s recorded history is only thousands of years old. Again and again the scientific evidence has made us feel small by showing us that we are not so special that the universe should revolve around us.

In each of the examples that were just given, new technology allowed scientists to gather evidence to answer questions that they could not answer earlier. But by the time science was able to answer these questions many people’s curiosity had already been satisfied by the answers that their religious leaders had given them. Since people do not like to admit to being wrong, it is not surprising that many religious people are angry at science rather than acknowledge that they have been misled.

In two ways the scientific answers can be humbling: first scientific answers tend to show us that we are not so important to the workings of the universe and second presumptuous people do not like to be informed that they are wrong. Since proud people do like to be corrected this too makes scientific evidence unpopular.

Being presumptuous is just as common among scientists as it is with religious leaders. Scientists are supposes to be objective in weighing evidence so as to arrive at the correct belief. Yet according to Thomas Kuhn in writing about scientific revolutions, rather than objectively examining the evidence the majority of scientists incorrectly work backwards in starting with a belief and then seek out evidence that supports that belief. According to Thomas Kuhn, unlike how science is suppose to work once scientists latch on to an incorrect belief no amount of conflicting evidence will cause them to give up their refuted belief.

The current controversy over the cause of global warming is a good example of how many scientists are more stubborn and even irrational rather than being objective. After scientists discovered that the surface of Venus is extremely hot - 700 K - and that the atmosphere of Venus is primary carbon dioxide – 96% - climatologists came to suspect that the man-made release of carbon dioxide might be the cause of the warming of the Earth’s surface temperature. Yet further testing showed that 1) based on its absorption properties carbon dioxide by itself could not be responsible for the warmer temperatures on either Venus or Earth and in fact the absorption properties of a gas is actual an irrelevant factor in determining a planet’s surface temperature, 2) presently the mid-ocean ridges release at least a thousand times more carbon dioxide than the man-made emissions, and 3) atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the Mesozoic era were roughly a million times greater than what they are today and yet the average global temperature was not significantly different. Each of these sets of evidence is a fatal flaw to the carbon dioxide causes global warming belief, and several more could be listed; if we are playing by the rules, it only takes one fatal flaw to refute a scientific belief.

The astronomers’ magnetic dynamo theory is another example of scientists being obtuse to conflicting evidence. Based on the belief that the Earth’s magnetic field was connected to its rotation it was proposed that electric charge rotating in the liquid core is the source of a planet’s magnetic field. But then it was discovered that the Earth’s magnetic field has reverse itself numerous times while clearly its rotation has not changed direction. Furthermore with the exploration of the other planets much more evidence came in refuting the magnetic dynamo theory than what might support it: 1) Mercury has a magnetic field even though it has no spinning liquid core, 2) both Uranus and Neptune have magnetic fields that are neither lined up with the axis of rotation nor centered in the planet. The magnetic dynamo theory is not a scientific theory; it is an incorrect hypothesis.

A third example could be the science community’s willingness to ignore Galileo’s Square-Cube Law rather than admit that they did not know how dinosaurs grew so large.

It is understandable that non-scientific people are often upset by the truth concerning reality, but it is inexcusable that so many science degree holders show a preference towards denying evidence rather than acknowledging scientific incongruities. People who can not admit when they are wrong are not people with strong reasoning skills, and these are people who would have been better suited for an occupation outside of science. But sadly many science disciplines are saturated with proud people with poor reasoning skills. There is no other way to explain how such a simple yet extremely important scientific belief as Galileo’s Square-Cube Law could be ignored for over three and a half centuries.

Rather than censoring confounding evidence we need to bring it out in the open. Bringing confounding evidence out into the open makes more scientists aware of the problems and thus allows more scientists the opportunity to work on solving the problems. The best scientists are more intrigued than upset when evidence or experimental results conflict with their initial beliefs. They recognized that odd results are opportunities to make new scientific discoveries. The truth concerning our reality is discovered with every puzzle that we solve.

Scientific beliefs are much more likely of being true because they are accountable to the evidence. Since correct answers are usually preferred, the other providers of answers envy the credibility of science. Many pseudo sciences put the word science in their name as just one of the means of tapping into the credibility associated with science. With so many groups claiming that what they do is science it becomes confusing as to what is science.

As an example of how pseudo sciences pretends to be science let us look at the religious groups’ efforts to replace the teaching of the Theory of Evolution with their religious beliefs regarding creation. Initially they were more straightforward about their intentions in stating that they wanted creation beliefs taught as an alternative belief to that of the Theory of Evolution. But the Supreme Court ruled against their efforts to teach religion in the science classroom. So they gave their creation beliefs the scientific sounding name of Intelligent Design and replace the more obvious religious words such as God with code words such as all knowing and powerful intelligent designer. Their belief that a supreme being created the Earth as depicted in the bible is clearly not supported by the physical evidence; their belief is a matter of faith. By pretending that ID is a scientific rather than a religious belief, they cause some people to wonder if there is harm in teaching ID and the Theory of Evolution side by side as if religious beliefs are just as factual as scientific beliefs.

It should be easy to distinguish between religious and scientific beliefs yet the sloppiness of the science community in defining this distinction has allowed the pseudo sciences pretending to be science the burr the boundary. The problem that the science community has in defining science is that they have already allowed non-scientific groups to be considered science and so now it is impossible to define science without offending these accepted yet non-scientific parties. Without a clear definition and enforceable standards, scientific progress is stuck in a confusing quagmire. It is often the case that scientists themselves do more to impede the advancement of science than the harm done by the pseudo sciences pretending to be science.

One can hardly claim that they are conducting an objective scientific investigation if they only accept evidence that seems to confirm their beliefs while rejecting all the contradicting evidence. But on this account many scientists are no better than the religious fanatics that attack the Theory of Evolution. When scientists have their research funded by companies or organizations that have specific expectations regarding the results, can this compromised study really be considered objective science?

Another problem within science is the inconsistencies between one science disciplines and another. While the biologists are explaining the special significance of scientific theories so has to clarify why the Theory of Evolution is not just a theory, the astronomers negated their efforts by claiming that every one of their often-times-incorrect hypotheses are scientific theories.

A third problem is the careless attitude that some science disciplines have towards backing their statements with evidence. Fortune tellers will use parlor tricks as evidence to convince their clients that there are hidden dimensions; yet the string theorists are not even trying to gather evidence to support their belief in 26 dimensions to reality. Likewise instead of citing evidence, paleontologists will often cite the opinions of each of other in the process of telling their creation and extinction stories. Thus they promote the incorrect belief that an authoritative opinion can be substituted for physical evidence in determining the scientific truth. If authoritative opinion passes as science, then why should the religious public accept the radioactive dating evidence showing the Earth to be 4.6 billion years old rather than the authority of the bible?

It is not the public’s fault that they are confused as to what is or is not science, it is the fault of the science community that has failed to clearly define science and then failed to hold its members accountable to that definition.

In a well defined world, all true scientific beliefs could be clearly connected to the physical evidence supporting these scientific beliefs. This connection between physical evidence, scientific beliefs, and what we can accept as being true about our reality is the essence of what is science. The pseudo sciences understand this. For the purpose of gaining underserved credibility as real science, the pseudo sciences pretend that they are gathering evidence and that their beliefs are based on the gathered evidence. But while the pseudo sciences know what is needed to put on the appearance of being science, the science community ‘experts’ appear to be clueless.

It is a failure in leadership that the collective science community can not produce a definition of science. Instead of making the simple statement that scientific beliefs are based on physical evidence, state education boards usually fill the blank with a ‘dog and pony show’ about the scientific method and a description of what scientists do; some of these misleading ‘experts’ will even go so far as to erroneously claim that science can not be defined. While science students are drilled on carefully defining every term within science, these ‘experts’ display their incompetence in that they can not even define science.

There are serious negative consequences to this failure to clearly define science as being based on evidence. On the one side there is a multitude of poor scientists holding back the advancement of science by propagating their unsupported beliefs as scientific ideas. While outside the science community there are scores of pseudo sciences confusing the public regarding the truths of our reality.

The future of science education and likewise the future of science in general and the advancement of our civilization are at risk until a clear boundary is drawn between what is science and what is not science. By correctly defining science as being based on evidence, some people that now enjoy being under the umbrella of mainstream science will find that they are not actually a part of the true scientific community. This is a good thing. These science impostures do far more damage to the credibility or advancement of science than what any outside enemy of science might accomplish. The science degree holders that are careless about holding their beliefs accountable to the evidence need to be kicked to the curb with a vengeance.

Science is founded on the premise that we exist in a rational reality and from this premise it follows that every scientific belief can and should be based on evidence, otherwise it is not science. To be completely clear as to what is science it can be defined in one simple sentence:

Science Heros

• Albert Einstein - Tesla Memorial Society of New York
  
• Charles Darwin - LUCIDCAFE
  
• Sir Isaac Newton - ONLINE SCHOOL
  
• The Galileo Project - Rice University