How can science always be right?

Question

How can science always be right?

Answer 1

Science has never claimed to "always be right."  Science is always searching for what is correct, and is often wrong in the process.

Answer 2

"Science" isn't "always right."

The scientific method means:

1) generate a testable hypothesis to explain something. "Testable" means that the hypothesis makes predictions about what will happen under certain defined conditions.

2) Perform tests and observe the results.

3) If the results falsify the hypothesis, discard it. Otherwise, keep testing.

The result of this method is that hypotheses that survive over a long time are those that are capable of making useful and correct predictions. That is the only sense in which science is right.

Answer 3

It isn’t

The scientific method is where an idea or theory is put forward, it is tested, then announced to the scientific community so that others can test or disprove it and finally it is accepted.

- Greek scientists thought the sun revolved around the earth.

- Once it was thought that since light acts like a vibration space must be filled with a medium to conduct it; called the ether.  Now we know that space is empty, photons are particles and can move across empty space.

-  Ben Franklin said that electricity moved from the positive pole to the negative pole, when the other way around is the truth.

One feature of the scientific method is that we are always testing what we think we know.  Most people agree that the earth revolves around the sun but every space mission proves that by using the information based on that idea to calculate the orbit.  When the orbit changes from the one predicted things have to be checked to find out why.

We once thought that quasars were super bright stars, now we know that we are seeing the gamma ray emissions for matter being destroyed just before it enters a black hole.  One theory stated that black holes were worm holes and that the lead to white holes (like quasars) and you could take a short cut and pass through them.  Now we know that a black hole is a dead end, nothing escapes it except Hawking Radiation.

Steven Hawking, the master of the black hole; the first person to try and prove their existence once doubted his work and made a famous bet with another astronomer that they did not exist.  That astronomer has framed the dollar he won when they proved that black holes do indeed exist.  We are learning more and more about black holes and they are changing our fundamental understanding of the universe.  Now we know that super massive black holes exist at the core of most galaxies and that the gamma ray bursts from those black holes may have shot some interstellar gas off into space thus reducing the number of stars and planets that earlier theories said should be there.  Now we know why.

Einstein invented the idea of dark matter and dark energy as the cosmological constant; a fudge factor to account for the huge amount of matter and energy that seemed to be missing from the universe.  He later called it his biggest mistake, but we have now proved that he is right.  Once NBC News announced that dark matter was just interstellar hydrogen, but now we have theories that it is made up of a fundamentally different form of matter.

As our understanding of the physical word improves our theories and our science rushes to keep pace; science is mostly correct because it is put to the test frequently and if it is proved to be wrong then new theories to explain it are developed.

Answer 4

people dotn want to know that is what they obviously believe so i will never read an answer in the science area again!!

Answer 5

Well science always tells us a process is right if and only if both theoretical and practical values are correct or if not it just become a chapter in our science books stating some people stated this just by burdening us...