Don't Drink the Kool-Aid!
Unfortunately, not every claim by a scientist is true:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/a-dig-through-old-files-reminds-me-why-ie28099m-so-critical-of-science/
Let's take a lesson from history, folks...
To expound a bit on this notion [because, hey...that's what professors do!], think back a few hundred years:
- Everyone knew that the Earth was stationary.
It makes sense, right? If you stand still on a day that isn't windy, you get the sense that you're not moving! So, therefore, the Earth must not be moving, either...
...except that we know that it is! Earth revolves around the Sun at a rate of 18.5 miles per second—that translates to 66,600 miles per hour [for those who use the metric system, that's a little over 107,000 kph]!
Not only that, but the Sun is in an arm of the Milky Way Galaxy (an arm that moves around the center of the galaxy), and the Milky Way itself is moving away from other galaxies. So, even when you're standing still, you're actually moving through space at an extremely fast rate, relative to other galaxies!
- For a long time, doctors and scientists refused to believe that invisible entities caused people to be sick.
Eventually, however, the field of medicine came around, and acknowledged that microscopic organisms like bacteria and viruses are often responsible for sickness. This revelation that infectious agents are making us ill allows us to explain sickness—and, therefore, to more effectively treat these illnesses!
- Everybody knew that maggots came from rotting meat, or that worms fell out of the sky when it rained.
People all over the world observed these phenomena, over and over again! [See, we have a directly observable phenomenon, as well as numerous replications! Therefore, science! Right?...]
Aristotle advanced the theory of spontaneous generation to explain such observations as the sudden appearance of maggots in rotting meat or the appearance of fleas in dusty areas. For about 2000 years, this was the prevailing idea to explain these phenomena.
Thanks to well-designed experiments by Pasteur and others, however, this idea was finally disproven in the 1800s! The Wikipedia page on spontaneous generation is a good, concise read on the matter.
- Gravity is a sort of magnetic force between objects with mass.
Einstein-ian gravity is distinct from the classical Newtonian conception of gravity (it's outside my wheelhouse, but I'll give it a go): as an object with mass moves through space, the dimension of space-time itself is distorted. The more massive an object is, the stronger the effect. Therefore, a very massive object (like a planet, or a star) doesn't attract other objects through an independent force called gravity so much as objects are pushed toward that object by the distortion of space-time around that massive object.
As an analogy: imagine that you've got a baseball with a piece of tape around the surface. The tape is not tightly wound; rather, there are places that you could fit your finger between the tape and the surface of the ball. Now, you throw the baseball at a trampoline. What will happen to the tape at the point where it contacts the trampoline?
Right: the tape will be pushed closer to the surface of the ball. Similarly, the warping of space-time around a very massive object—like...oh, say, the planet Earth—pushes objects toward the center of that object.
So, according to a relativistic understanding of physics, we're not being pulled toward the center of the Earth by a magnet-like force called "gravity." Instead, we're being pushed toward the center of the Earth by the very fabric of reality itself!*If there are any mistakes or misunderstandings in the above explanation, they are mine alone! I hope that any readers who are trained in physics will inform me of any such mistakes, so that I can correct them!*
I think this concept is explained well and concisely here, and interested parties can find a longer and more technical explanation, with more historical context, here.
- See my post at Psych Central on the self-correcting nature of science: https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/10/05/the-powerless-pose-how-the-power-pose-debacle-illustrates-good-science-at-work/?all=1
- Speaking of errors, I made one in that article: Amy Cuddy has NOT recanted her position on power posing; it was lead author Dana Carney. Oops.
Thankfully, a couple commenters were quick to point out my mistake. See? A self-correcting process...
- Speaking of errors, I made one in that article: Amy Cuddy has NOT recanted her position on power posing; it was lead author Dana Carney. Oops.
***
However, these facts should not be used to condemn the scientific method or to promote ideas that have been falsified through testing: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Science_was_wrong_beforeThe whole idea of this post is that we need to be skeptical! That doesn't mean we should disbelieve everything, but it does mean that we need to thoroughly examine the evidence.
Unfortunately, many people just assume "Oh, a scientist said it, so it must be true!" Clearly, this is not the case. So don't just believe everything you hear; look at the quality of the evidence and the number of studies that found the same thing.That's a more difficult and time-consuming process than just believing the first thing you read...but if you want the truth, that's what is necessary.
Scientific knowledge is always subject to revision based on new results. Anybody who says otherwise is wrong. You'll sometimes see respected scientists in popular videos or press releases, stating (or implying) that their study proves something—but this is just an example of these people getting carried away. They're supposed to know better...
An old adage by Andre Gide applies to evaluating popular claims of science, as well as many other domains of life:
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