The scientific method has proven itself to be the most reliable tool we have for figuring out and understanding the world we live in. The need to verify claims, to seek disproof and to build on reliable but always provisionally held knowledge have set it apart from the more subjective and non-correcting ways of trying to figure out the world.
Science often starts with making a hypothesis; an idea of how or why something in the physical world is the way it is. For example, why do baking recipes require changes to the cooking time or temperature based on how high from sea level the baker is? Investigators would first try to confirm if in fact that claim is true or not by following the exact same recipe at different altitudes.
If the initial claim in the hypothesis is confirmed, the next step would be to investigate what factors might be causing the needed change to the recipe. In this example it would require studying and measuring the atmospheric differences and what effect different pressures have on the temperature at which water boils or food cooks.
If a link can be discovered, it could be tested in a lab by artificially altering the air pressure and baking the recipe. All this would begin to form a model to explain why baking recipes need to be altered based on the altitude of the baker.
The findings of this particular group of scientists would then be written up and submitted to a peer-reviewed science journal. If the study is found to have been properly conducted and explained, the paper would then be published.
The next step would require a different group of scientists to try and replicate or fail to replicate the first study’s results and conclusions. If other scientists confirm the same results, and ideally make successful predictions based on the model, then the proposed model will gain a consensus view within the scientific community and would be incorporated into our collective scientific knowledge.
But the model will always be held as a provisional explanation or theory. If new data comes to light that disproves or alters some detail of the model, this new model or explanation will replace the older one. That’s how science works, in an obviously simplified nutshell.
Points: If the global scientific community doesn’t have an evidence-based explanation for something about the physical world we live in, then it’s a fair assumption that no one on planet earth has an evidence-based explanation for that something. And as the old saying goes, claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Points. There is nothing wrong with saying we don’t currently know the answer to questions. It’s better than making stuff up.
Points. Being honest and carefully factual is the moral imperative of the scientific method.
Points. Asking how we can objectively verify if a claim is true, and how we might verify if a claim is false, is a required step if we hope to understand the world as accurately as possible.