Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I somehow managed to graduate from a small, private college with a bachelor's in Biology. Now, I don't necessarily use my degree much in my current profession but I still carry an interest in the subject. It's an excellent thought that in spite of what any individual person might believe, science continues to be true. Nowadays, I try to keep a passing glance on new theories and discoveries in the field. Although science-based books aren’t always the most riveting ever written, I occasionally enjoy a good read. While you’re here, I’m going to go ahead and recommend Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World and How to Build a Time Machine by Paul Davies. I even manage to continue a small level of activism through protests and outreach websites like Citizen Science (Give it a try sometime). In this meager way, I can prolong my involvement and aid my fellow man. The real conflict I have is my incredible sadness at the insufficient level of scientific literacy present in America. I hope that by bringing up topics like this I can help you begin conversations and in doing so, encourage others to read and research for themselves.
As a former Biology major, one of the biggest issues I personally find myself up against is the two distinct uses of the word ‘prove’. The average person assumes when a fact or idea is proven it is true beyond a shadow of a doubt. Can that truly be the case? There happens to be a bit of a miscommunication in modern society about what proving a scientific discovery actually entails. The scientific disciplines treat the word differently than other academic divisions. According to Merriam-Webster, prove is a transitive verb defined as putting forth some sort of meaningful effort to establish truth, validity, quality, worth, etc. Fairly early on in my scientific career, we were told to strike this word from our very vocabulary. Why? It’s simple. You never prove anything in science. All you can do form a plausible hypothesis and accumulate data to support or invalidate it. Our current body of knowledge has been collected from centuries of observation, diligent research, and trial and error. Evidence gathered to support the most likely hypotheses.
There are two overarching categories into which hypotheses with the most gathered support fall: Theories and Laws. A Scientific Theory is a hypothesis that has been tested over and over with a large pool of positive results supporting its conclusions. Examples of this include Gravity, Evolution, Atomic, Climate Change, and Relativity. For some reason, certain individuals tend to perceive theories as somehow less truthful than Laws. One common complaint I’ve often heard lodged against evolution is they don’t need to give it credit because it's just a theory. Well so is gravity and it has a bigger pool of evidence backing it up then God. A Scientific Law is an observation that describes a part of our universe gathered through repetitive experimentation. A few examples of this are Motion, Thermodynamic, and Universal Gravitation. Laws tend to be less tangible but no less important to scientific canon.
Is science infallible? No. Can a theory or law be debunked, revised, or replaced? Yes, of course! Countless hypotheses have been investigated over the centuries. If a better interpretation comes along, an old theory can be discarded for a new, better fitting one. Plenty of hypotheses have been abandoned by the wayside in humanities search for knowledge. Preformationism, or the belief that humans start out as tiny fully formed humonculi in sperm or eggs, was a popularly held belief for centuries. It was discarded in favor of epigenetics, the current theory of reproduction, in the 20th century. Science is constantly searching for better explanations of what we experience in our world. The fact that such a large portion of our population ignore its findings whether willfully or unintended is one of the great tragedies of our time. So dear Reader, if you have a question, any question, don’t be afraid to go out and discover the answer for yourself.
Thanks For Reading,
A Southern Atheist
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