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Can Science Ever Be "Settled?"

Posted by Unknown on from the it's-all-a-computer-simulation-anyway dept.

StartsWithABang writes "From physics to biology, from health and medicine to environmental and climate science, you'll frequently hear claims that the science is settled. Meanwhile, those who disagree with the conclusions will clamor that science can never be 'settled,' and then the name-calling from 'alarmist' to 'denier' ensues. But can science legitimately ever be considered settled, and if so, what does that mean? We consider gravitation, evolution, the Big Bang, germ theory, and global warming in an effort to find out."

3 of 497 comments (clear)

  1. I hope not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For well over a thousand years Aristotle's work in the physical sciences (including zooology) was considered settled... until people started testing his theories

    We called that period the "Enlightenment"

  2. Re:i interpret it to mean by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The best description of this is Isaac Asimov's essay The Relativity of Wrong. He points out, that while science is often wrong, as time goes on, the degree of wrongness diminishes. For instance, Einstein showed that Newton's laws of motion were wrong, but Newton was less wrong than Aristotle.

  3. Re:i interpret it to mean by Kazoo+the+Clown · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, I like to use this relative wrongness to illustrate "what's wrong" with pseudoscience. Science advances when someone finds something wrong with current theory. You learn from your mistakes. So I ask you, when was the last time someone found an error in the theory of Astrology? Of Creationism? Of anti-AGW? If mistakes AREN'T being found in these "sciences" they aren't progressing. Instead, if they're finding mistakes it's not in their own theories, but in the competing theories, like Creationism finding errors in Evolution or anti-AGW in AGW. The funny thing about that is, to the extent they are actually finding legitimate errors (and not just misinterpreting, misrepresenting or misunderstanding), they are actually contributing to making their "opponents" science better.