To Understand the Truth of Science, We Need to Become Scientists Ourselves

Truth is not as ‘black and white’, ‘yes and no’, or ‘correct and incorrect’ as we may think. Especially scientific truth. How are we able to trust science if it is not always a hard truth? 

Should we join some of the people who don’t believe in certain sciences, such as people who think global warming is propaganda? Bloomberg journalist and “Follow the Science” podcast host F.D. Flam wrote about these people in her article “Question Authority, But Trust Science” (2). She wrote about how research points to liberals blindly trusting science while conservatives don’t trust information backed up by scientists. This isn’t due to them being anti-scientists, but because science does not always align with their viewpoints so they discredit the scientists who back this type of information. They turn to scientists who agree with their views to keep the same ideas as their ingroup. This leads to the question: if there are scientists who support the evidence of global warming and scientists who deny it, who can we trust? 

F.D. Flam concludes that we should put our trust in science, but not scientists. When you read an article or a scientific fact that interests you, look into it deeper. Don’t always trust the first source and take the time to look where the information came from. A friend’s grandma bought CBD gummies off of Facebook because she read that Dr. Oz was preaching about their ability to cleanse the body. She ended up being scammed out of $150 because she did not fact-check it as Dr. Oz was not praising the CBD gummies advertised and the company was fake. It is easy for people to be swayed when they see something is being backed up by a doctor or scientist but it’s important to look further into what is being actually said to see the truth. 

Doctor and epidemiologist Ben Goldacre gave a TED Talk about “Battling Bad Science” where he cited one article that said coffee causes cancer, and another that said coffee prevents cancer (3). What is the truth? In his talk, he was able to convey how journalists can take only bits of a research article to give a half-truth to get more hits on their articles, and that drug companies can withhold clinical trial information to sell more drugs and make more money. In a world where science is given to us in half-truths and dumbed-down articles, we need to become scientists ourselves and research the facts to understand what in science is true. 

Does the trickiness of the truth of science mean that science itself is limited? Another article by F.D. Flam questions: “Have Scientific Breakthroughs Declined?” The article stated that because fewer scientific papers are being cited at a significant amount, there are fewer large breakthroughs in science (1). Flam ponders this question and references John Horgan, a science writer, who theorized that because all the foundations of science have been discovered, except for areas like quantum mechanics, it is hard to topple these discoveries and that may be why there are fewer “breakthrough” scientific discoveries happening now. 

While the discoveries of today are in no way revolutionary compared to the amazing feats of scientists like Albert Einstein, James Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, and Isaac Newton, there is still plenty to be discovered. In class, we spoke about how the connection between the mind and the body as well as how consciousness works is still a mystery. To solve this would be a monumental breakthrough. This could lead us to understand questions like: What happens after we die?, Do we have souls?, and many more questions that many scientists have theorized about but none have answered. There is much more to discover in the science world and by searching for the truth and promoting real answers we can advance our own scientific knowledge and understanding.




Sources

  1. Flam, F.D. Have scientific breakthroughs declined? (2023, December 23). Bloomberg.Com. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-12-23/have-scientific-breakthroughs-declined

  2. Flam, F.D. Question authority, but trust science. (2016, November 6). Bloomberg.Com. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-06/question-authority-but-trust-science

  3. Goldacre, B. (1317309649). Battling bad science. https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science


*I did not use Chat GPT but I did use Grammarly which checks grammar, spelling, and punctuation. 

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