Follow the Science?

When climate activists or Corona vaccination advocates try to argue against opponent views, one of their first arguments is "follow the science". Anyone who is a little less fanatical and a bit more skeptical is beaten with the argument that they may be denying scientific findings. Being "non-scientific" is a killer argument similar to blaming someone to believe in astrology or voodoo magic and thus be outright wrong.

What is science?

The Oxford dictionary defines science as the process to generate "knowledge about the structure and behavior of the natural and physical world, based on facts that you can prove". Basically there a two ways to generate scientific knowledge. The classic way (inductive) is to start with empirical observations and to come up with a generalized theory, which explains the observations. Or you can start with an abstract theory and try to verify it by practical experiments (deductive).

As long as the theory has not been fully proven, we better should refer to it as a hypothesis. Making a theory bullet proof can take years, if not decades and may even never come to an end. A proof needs to take into account every conceivable condition, while a single contradictory example refutes the theory or at least requires to refine and establish more restrictive preconditions for the theory to be valid. This is the way, science really works. Science is a trial and error process. Theories come, some stay, but the majority is thrown away once a better theory is found.

However, sometimes a theory even survives, when another contradicting theory is established. A good example is the dual nature of light. Classical physics describes light as an electromagnetic wave, while quantum physics models light as photon particles. Some practical observations can be explained by the wave model, some by the quantum model, but none is valid in all situations. Physics has learned to accept such contradictory explanations, and so should we. Something may be useful - as well as its opposite. No need to take sides.

Is science a democratic process?

"But the scientific community agrees on this ...". An argument often used against someone who doubts the conclusions that should follow from some scientific findings. So because the majority agrees on some scientific findings you should too?

Ok, in the western world we believe that society should act according to what the majority wants. But does that mean that the majority is always right? I could come up with some examples here to cast doubt, but I don't want to start a political discussion - and because of Churchill's famous quote “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”.

Science definitely is not a democratic process. Ask Galileo Galilei. His scientific work made him believe in the heliocentric model with the earth rotating around the sun, while the "majority of educated people at the time subscribed to the Aristotelian geocentric view that the earth is the center of the universe". Galileo bowed to the will of the majority (in form of the Catholic church at his time), but secretly he continued to think "and yet it moves". Today we know who was right ... 

How does the scientific community really work?

In universities and public research organizations large teams of researchers steadily do output new knowledge, however gradually, very very small steps at a time. Most of what is published, is published for career reasons. If you want to achieve a Ph.D., you are expected to publish a lot. And your professor is expected to have good researchers work for him - and many. Quantity is easier to measure than quality. Maybe this favors quantity first.

A scientist is expected to base her work on as much existing knowledge as possible, but must come up with something new. So when you publish you cite a lot of work from others and explain why your work is different and new, but you raerly mark older research as misguided. You hope that those who you cite are proud about being cited and politely cite you as well. It's give and take. The more citations, the bigger your community, the better.

Do not expect big leaps. Breakthrough results rarely come from large teams and organizations. It takes weird people - think Albert Einstein or Stephen Jobs - to create revolutionary ideas. And then it takes a team and some time to convert these ideas into something usable ...

Good scientists never solve a problem completely! Each scientific work should come up with new answers, but always put up some new questions. So that follow up research is required. This may secure the scientists own job and will help her organization to ask for more funding. Imagine how your scientific community friends, who work on the same problem, would feel about you, if you finally solved the problem.

Nowadays we have thousands of scientific publications about global warming and the role of emissions. Some years ago we had a lot of scientific research showing that emissions from smoking are dangerous. So a natural conclusion would be: Do not smoke to avoid global warming. Is there research about the link between global warming and smoking? Probably not, because it looks like nonsense. But what if someone came up with the idea and organized public funding for the topic. Most research is done on topics for which a lot of funding is available. Public funding is controlled by people, who often want to promote some political agenda, even if they establish "scientific" committees to distribute the money. Promoting the public good is ok, marketing to get reelected is a necessity. Private funding for research comes from industries, who want to convert the results into business or do it for marketing purposes. All valid reasons. But again, never confuse quantity with quality and rarely with importance. And be sure: scientists know you better don't make your sponsor unhappy.

Conclusion

Follow the science. But be careful: what is considered consensus today, may be wrong tomorrow. It is a trial and error process. Life is evolution by mutations, not a majority vote. There is no predefined single way of right or wrong. Nature tries a lot in parallel. What works will survive for now, what does not work disappears. If all animals had been dinosaurs a million years ago, nobody would need to walk their dog today ...

Apologies

This is not to blame scientists. I only tried to summarize my observations while working in what the public would consider a scientific environment. I admire those, whom I consider to be real scientists, according to the definition in the Oxford dictionary. But in my opinion only few are, and I am afraid society expects too much from science and scientists. 

I am not a scientist, I am an engineer. I studied electrical and computer engineering at a scientific university and worked as a scientific researcher to earn a Ph.D. After some years in industry doing development work I became a university professor again doing scientific research. But frankly, I never really produced ground-breaking new knowledge, i.e. real science in the Oxford dictionary sense. All I tried to do was to combine existing knowledge to produce something which was of practical use for someone - and to earn a living from it. Development work, that is what engineers do. And what most other people do - including most scientists. Fortunately.