Real science vs fake science...

So I generally catch some flak when I make the suggestion the science I was taught back when I was in school is nothing like what passes for so much of our science today. I hear words like "generational" and am often forced to deal with an attitude that such views are old fashioned and no longer valid.

When I was in school, we were taught that scientific theories or laws started out as hypothesis, until such a time when the ebb and flow of trial and error molded that hypothesis into a proven theory or scientific law. This testing was tangible and the data empirical. More over, all other competing hypothesis would have to have been disproven, before we would accept one hypothesis as fact.

By the time a hypothesis became a theory or law there was generally only a fraction of the original hypothesis left. Even the best of scientists are not capable of guessing everything correct the first time around. How many different experiments did Dr Frankenstein perform before he brought his monster to life?

When people suggest that a cure or a vaccine for Covid-19 is still months away, it's because the people developing these things are actual scientists performing scientific work. What they are working on today probably holds only a general similarity to what they started with. Trial and error, careful testing, and verifiable results are exactly what science is and why the process cannot just be obtained overnight. Only when they can verify that they have a vaccine that works, will their work be complete.

Now imagine, will you, if these doctors and scientists worked the way most of our politically charged science and scientists work. One scientist would have presented a hypothesis for a vaccine. Others would have looked at it (peer review) and if a majority of them agreed with the hypothesis, well then we would have what is now being called a scientific consensus. If enough of them agree, then there may even be a demand to call it "settled science" (which generally means literally the opposite).

Nobody would have any real idea if the vaccine would work because nobody actually "tested it" in any tangible sense because that would take too long. But they did run some computer simulations and can be certain enough from that that the hypothesis is correct. More importantly, the hypothesis is deemed to be politically acceptable to those they wish to please politically. Lastly, they would shame and cast out anyone who disagreed with them or suggested that we need to wait for actual testing before we can deem it fact.

How do you supposed that would work out?

The reality is that there is real science going on when we actually require real science. But following science today seems to mean accepting opinions of people with degrees, or allowing computer simulations to replace tangible testing and real empirical data. If we truly wanted to follow science, it would require patience and it would almost never be able to drive the day to day political issues that we deal with (science takes too long and is not mobile enough for that). The idea that we now like to intermingle our politics with talk of science is exactly why some people would like to redefine the meaning of science.

Perhaps resisting such redefinition of science is generational or old fashioned or both. But being generational or old fashioned doesn't make it wrong.