“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
-Albert Einstein
I am priviledged to have the opportunity to study chemistry. It’s a necessary course I need for getting into post-secondary education but instead of being a burden it is enlightening. I didn’t realize how little I understood about the scientific process of developing theories. In my narrowmindedness I thought predictions preceded theories which preceded laws. In my mind, laws were indesputable pieces of scientific knowledge that cannot be dislodged regardless of evidence that says otherwise. This was the primary reason that I disregarded evolution. It was only a theory and not yet graduated to lawhood.
How wrong I was.
Einstein sums up my more recent understanding of science. For a theory to be accepted, it must undergo a lot of scrutiny by the scientific community. A theory must be able to:
1. Explain observations in nature in unobservable ideas
2. Predict the results of future experiments accurately
3. Be simple in concept and application
Theories are not tainted by emotional involvement and resulting social immplications. Being brought up in a Christian environment, I had a notion that science was all a big conspiracy to thwart humanity away from God. It was a necessary evil that the public school system required all students to understand in hopes to drag them away from their beliefs. Possibly this was a subconscious reason why I chose not to study sciences in high school.
How wrong I was.
Science is not some made up philosophy or idea. Rather, it is a collection of knowledge based on observations of nature. It is the exploration of why our environment is the way it is. Isn’t that exciting? I hardly think science is an enemy.
All for now, more to come…
