Science doesn’t have every answer and never will. But the scientific method is sound, and evidence of its success is everywhere.

Actually...that's exactly what that means, unless you're going to say old science that has been debunked or abandoned is still right.

all science is partly to completely wrong. old science, new science, doesn't matter. the cool thing is that almost anyone can walk into a field of science and make new progress because of that reality.

the sad thing is how many scientists, who should be smart about exactly this, tend to cling to foolish ideas and pass them along to students as 'known' or 'proven facts'.

Many non-scientists demand to know the answers to everything right away — and when science inevitably fails to deliver on some front, they get disillusioned and cling instead to an alternative worldview, as in a holy book, that offers certainty and a tidy, cookie-cutter explanation of the universe.

That’s not how science works.

Science doesn’t know everything about the universe yet — and it probably never will. Science sometimes contradicts itself. Occasionally a new theory is adopted, and what once seemed certain is discarded.

Science never gets complacent; it is always focused on expanding boundaries. Probing at the frontiers of knowledge sometimes leads to breakthroughs but also on occasion inevitably results in going down rabbit-holes and turning down dead-ends.

But so long as the scientific method is properly applied, even “failed” experiments are legitimate and worthwhile inquiries, because if someone didn’t go there first, then we’d never know what was there to begin with.

If previous generations had been content with their status in life and deluded themselves into believing they had already discovered everything worth knowing, and were so afraid of being wrong about something that they never experimented at the frontiers of knowledge, then we’d all still be huddled around fire pits using stone tools.

Thank goodness our ancestors weren’t afraid of being wrong.

you should write for some science-related cause or other.

Thanks.

These thoughts were heavily influenced by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, one of science's great communicators. My wife and I recently sat through his Masterclass where he really peeled back the curtain of his methods. Definitely worth a listen if you can plunk down the cash.

https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-degrasse-tyson-teaches-scientific-thinking-and-communication

well I'm afraid I'm not a Neil fan. I find him to be too much a salesman for the 'physics of the week'. i hope that he inspires enough people to get interested in science to make up for some of the foolishness he promotes. i'm sure i'd like him a lot as a person, tho.

Yeah, I've seen him kind of struggle sometimes to insert physics into pop culture, if that's what you're talking about.

But his Masterclass is geared toward a more educated audience and shows he knows his stuff. He really thinks about who his audience is and always gears his message toward that. He can hold a room full of Ph.D.'s, college grads, or elementary school children equally well.

He's a science popularizer and a damn good one at that.