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Asked by furzeplatt to Emma, Jen, Joseph, Michael, Mona on 21 Jun 2011.
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Michael Taggart answered on 20 Jun 2011:
We tend to think of science as being able to demonstrate fact from untruths but in reality it is a means of assessing the probability of something happening over it not. I think maybe you were wondering this too, no?
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Jen Gupta answered on 20 Jun 2011:
Interesting question! Most of science is the best theory that we have to explain what we see in experiments. For example, for a long time people thought that the atom was the smallest thing you could get. Then they found that an atom is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. And then scientists discovered that protons and neutrons can be split into quarks. It was still all science, people just weren’t seeing the full picture.
Another example of this is the laws of motion. Newton’s laws of motion do a great job at describing how things work on Earth and were accepted for over 200 years to be completely and utterly true. But then Einstein came along and realised that actually Newton’s laws need modifying if things are travelling at the speed of light. You’re still taught Newton’s laws of motion in school and they still describe day to day motion very well so they’re still science but they’re not the final word on motion.
Does that make sense? What do you think?
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Emma Bennett answered on 21 Jun 2011:
Scientists report what they believe to be true at the time but sometimes as technology improves these first theories are shown to be false, just like Jen said.
Scientists work with samples because it would be impossible to measure every single member of a population – the world has about 7 billion people in it so imagine trying to measure the height of every single person…….We try to make samples represent all the individuals in a population but sometimes this doesn’t happen and so the results aren’t true for everyone.
A great example of this is the black swan theory, if you were in the UK then you might decide that all swans were white. However swans from Australia are black, so the theory is not true for every single swan.This forms part of the idea that sampling can sometimes produce false results since it only takes one observation to challenge the theory that all swans are white.
So it is always good to question how true some parts of science really are. Scientists spend a lot of time repeating other peoples experiments to see if they agree or disagree with their results.
Comments
Jen commented on :
The more I think about it, the more I love this question! Thanks for asking it!
Michael commented on :
I just thought about what Emma rightly said – that scientists spend a fair bit of time repeating the experiments of others to see if they are in agreement or not. It can sometimes happen that a scientist will find out something that contradicts an earlier finding of their own! For example, you might test out new drug X that has been described as being able to interfere with moleule Y and slow the heart down. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for the the actions of this drug to then be described as something like “drug X, a selective inhibitor of molecule Y, reduces heart rate”. That may well be ‘true’ at the time of the initial experiments because there is no data to suggest otherwise. Such a new finding will generate lots of interest among other scientists who will want to test out drug X on their own slightly different experments. Sometimes then, it might be found that drug X has some other actions – maybe it will be found to have an effect in an experimental situation where molecule Y is absent. In that case, drug X must not be ‘specific’ for molecule Y. The original scientist may then test out drug X again, but armed with this new information. They may well find out that what they thought were actions on molecule Y were actually explained a little bit by drug x also having actions on molecule X – they just didn’t know why or how to look for this originally. So, these new results would then maybe be described as “drug X, an inhibitor of molecule Y, also inhibits molecule Z to ….”. That’s why if you ever see a drug described as “specific inhibitor/activator…” then that bold statement may not stand the test of time. So, as I mentioned above, with the best will in the world, a lot of science really is actually giving you the means to assess the probability of something happening over it not based upon information available at that moment in time.