Is Science Founded on Uncertainty?
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“Science is founded on uncertainty.”
-Lewis Thomas
Before I can enter this discussion, I must first admit and assume that wrongness exists, but what does wrong mean? If I am “wrong” does it mean that I am almost right, not even close to right, completely incorrect, limited, or just plain off my rocker? Typically, in the world of Science, being wrong isn’t a bad thing. You are still learning and discovering new things by proving your hypothesis wrong. The only way to ultimately become right is to be wrong a whole bunch of times in hopes of finally striking the nail on the head.
Each and every time a new discovery or breakthrough occurs in the world of Science, we then realize that what we were doing before was wrong. So many great achievements have been made and are being made as we speak. To us, it seems as though we are strongly advancing with new technology and ideas, but are we really that further ahead? So many things are still unknown to even the greatest scientists. There is a plethora of things on and around this earth that are just not able to be explained, even though we live in a world that appears to be technologically and scientifically developed.
Science is a very ambiguous domain. Take biology for example. We are learning more about the human body and DNA, yet the justifications become more and more obscure. The biologists claim they understand their field of knowledge, but can they truly know exactly what’s going on? Scientists know how the brain works, but do they really know how we work?