"The Science Is Settled"

How often have we heard that in the past couple of decades, even now in dealing with CoVid-19?  "The science is settled."  The statement has been summarily used to push agendas, when debate is discouraged or even feared.  It's been used to sway people who really don't know.  How easy to disarm (or at least try to disarm) opponents by throwing out "the science is settled!"  Who but the most ignorant of people would argue with "science?"

I guess the best example over recent years is "global warming," er "climate change"--or whatever it's called now.  Now it's how we deal with the corona virus.  "The science is settled."

No, the science isn't settled.  Science is never settled.  That's the essence of science, that there are unknowns and that there is always something new, more to learn.  But the phrase, "the science is settled" has been politicized to further agendas, to stifle debate, dissent, and challenges.  It lends a legitimacy, perhaps undeserved, a sense of credibility to a viewpoint.  Even more, it sways people who don't know much about an issue, but well, if the science is settled, that's good enough for them.

Again, no, the science isn't settled.  Science is never settled.  It's one of the important lessons I learned in my physics classes at Amherst.  (I admit to not realizing it at the time.  It took some years before it "clicked," before I could rejoice, "I get it!")  Consider these.

For centuries, the Western world believed that there were four elements in nature--earth, water, air, and fire (and sometimes ether).  This was not disputed, not by anyone credible.  And people accepted that  because "Aristotle [Empedocles or some other Greek scientist] said so."  (Other cultures had similar findings--Chinese, Indian/Buddhist, etc.)  The science had been settled.  No challenges allowed.

In 1633 (If I recall correctly.), the most famous European scientist of the day, Galileo Galilei, was put on trial, with the possibility of losing his life and being excommunicated (the death penalty of the soul), for challenging the accepted scientific and Church beliefs regarding the geocentric theory of Ptolemy, that the sun, stars, and entire universe moved around a stationary earth.   That he postulated the heliocentric theory of Copernicus and others almost cost Galileo his life--and his soul.  The science had been settled.  No challenges allowed.

More than two and a half centuries after Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein said this about the greatest of British scientists, "To Newton, nature was an open book whose letters he could read without effort.  Newton stands before us--strong, certain, and alone."  Einstein was hardly the only one to recognize the "most genius" (Einstein's words) of Newton.  Alexander Pope penned this, "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in the night.  God said, 'Let Newton Be' and all was light."  There was only one universe, physicists once said, and Newton had discovered all of its laws--optics, gravity, planetary orbits, wave motion, calculus, and, of course, his three laws of motion.  All this and yet 20th Century science has disproved many of Newton's theories, including Einstein's work with relativity and the quantum mechanics of Max Planck and others.  For 250 years or more, the science was settled.  No challenges allowed.

It was Carl Sagan, the astronomer/astrophysicist, who wrote, "In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know, that's a really good argument.  My position is mistaken.'  And then they would actually change their minds."  So, the science isn't really settled.  But apparently only scientists--well, some of them who haven't sold out to politicization and sources of funding--know that.

We should think about this the next time, whether it's climate change, how to deal with the corona virus, or whatever, we hear, "The science is settled."  It's not.  It never is.