Most people around the world view science as a monolithic institution that has a defined policy of what is true and what is not true and defends it.

This, of course, is a misconception that has nothing to do with how science is done, what science is and what is generally valued in the field of science.

The scientific method

Before we can tackle the misconceptions of what science is and isn't, the first thing we need to explain is the scientific method.

The scientific method is an ongoing process that relies on data and testable evidence to test the validity of different hypothesis about the world we live in. The process begins with making an observation about the world and forming a hypothesis that proposes a possible explanation. For a hypothesis to have the potential to expand our knowledge and understanding, it needs to have some predictive power. After one has constructed a hypothesis, one can start testing its predictions. This is done through experiments or data collection and generally has two possible outcomes - producing data that contradicts the predictions which disproves the hypothesis or producing data that is in line with the hypothesis and its predictions that can be used as evidence that the hypothesis might possibly be true.

This process is constantly repeated and a hypothesis might become accepted as proven beyond reasonable doubt only when there has been a lot of data gathered, when alternative hypotheses have been disproven and when there have been multiple experiments performed and the results of the experiments are repeatable regardless of who is conducting the experiment.

It's very important to notice that there is no claim of 100% accuracy when proving a hypothesis and the phase "beyond reasonable doubt" is absolutely on purpose. The scientific method can rely only on the data that is available and no matter how much evidence you have collected, a true 100% proof is not really attainable as there is always a chance that evidence contradicting the theory might be discovered. Still, when the quantity of the evidence becomes truly staggering, the results can be accepted as scientific fact.

For instance, the freezing and boiling points of water have been discovered through experimentation and this is how science has come to the understanding that both pressure and temperature are determining factors in that, not just temperature. But experiments about when water freezes and boils have been repeated throughout the world and they have been producing consistent results for a very long time so there is so much data gathered to confirm our hypothesis about it that it is safe to start treating it as scientific fact. This can be the case only until evidence to the contrary has been provided. If this happens, the scientific method kicks in again and starts looking for a hypothesis that can explain the full range of phenomena we are observing in a way that is consistent with all the experimental data we have found.

We use statistical analysis to determine when a particular hypothesis has been proven to a reasonable degree of certainty and when it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt, it can become part of existing scientific theory.

Throughout the years, this method has proven to produce scientific theories with immense predictive power that have led to a very deep understanding of the universe we live in and that we can test and observe. This understanding is what has ushered in this age of abundance humanity is currently experiencing. All the technology around us that makes our modern life at all possible has been achieved based on the efforts of a huge number of scientists who have used the scientific method over the years, constantly expanding our knowledge and understanding of the world around us.

In the end, the scientific method is the most powerful and arguably the only tool to allow us to probe into the mysteries of the universe.

Science is not a monolithic point of authority, it's actually decentralized

Many people imagine science as some kind of a commission, institution or panel that decrees what is true top down. That's why you see a lot of people using the phrase "Science says" and unfortunately ignorance on this matter is also quite common in the media when reporting on science.

It's very important to understand that in reality there is no single authority in science as science is being done in universities, establishments, agencies and even corporations all around the world and each team of researchers and often each individual scientist have their own views, ideas, notions and hypotheses they are looking to test.

The scientific community is actually much more similar to the decentralized world of cryptocurrency where each node on the network is checking the others and the common blockchain. Each scientist puts forward their hypotheses, theories, data and experiments and other interested members of the network check their work and often try to replicate their experiments to check their findings or disprove them and so on as so on. So scientific consensus on a particular theory is built slowly and requires a lot of data to be accumulated from all kinds of sources before we can talk about confirmation. On top of this, all data should conform to the theory, not some of it, so there is a high burden of proof. If there are contradictions, the theory needs to be reevaluated and adjusted until it properly accounts for all the phenomena we are seeing through experimentation.

But what's important is that there is no centralized institution that can dictate scientific fact or that can tell each individual scientist what to think or not think.

A decentralized network is so much more difficult to game.

A conspiracy to deceive about the facts is highly unlikely

If you start talking to people about science, you will notice that far too many view it as some sort of conspiracy and you'll see many people that would say that scientist are hiding the facts and all kinds of theories like that. But in reality, the only reason one might have to believe this, is a misconception about how science works.

A conspiracy requires that science has a governing body that can withhold information from the public and that can force all scientists to somehow not do their jobs.

The lack of a governing body means that most people doing science are working for universities and other establishments all over the world under all sorts of governments and regimes. The universities doing research are so numerous and they have such a wide diversity of interests, that it becomes highly unlikely for somebody to be able to coerce all of them into abandoning one of their main purposes - conducting research and uncovering knowledge.

Additionally, most people supporting conspiracy theories about science fail to understand that scientists throughout the world don't just publish their conclusions, but the whole experimental methodologies, their findings and why they think their findings support or contradict a certain hypothesis. Additionally, other scientist don't take these results on faith and often try to repeat the experiment, put their own twists on it or devise their own experiments to disprove or confirm the hypothesis proposed. All of this makes the scientific process very difficult to falsify as each node of the network of scientific research teams in the world is actually in a race to disprove each other and to discover new information first.

If a government of a particular country would like to silence a scientific discovery or to falsify some scientific fact, they could in theory shut up all their universities and scientists about it (though it would be very hard in practice in most of the free world). But this will only put them in a disadvantage as scientists from the rest of the world will immediately disprove their falsified claims and will possibly find the discoveries on their own claiming the credit and advancing their careers and reputations at the expense of those working under censorship. And the truth will still end up becoming public anyway.

There is no incentive to keep the scientific status quo

Many of the conspiracy theories about science claim that most scientists are somehow benefiting from maintaining the status quo and that is why they reject new and revolutionary ideas. As you might expect, this idea is again based on a misconception about how the scientific world works and how the scientific community is organized.

For this conspiracy theory to be the case, scientists would need to have a strong incentive to keep science from advancing, but such incentive does not actually exist. It's actually quite the contrary, if there is a certain bias in science, it's towards disproving the current understanding and proposing new theories and this is true regardless of the particular field of study.

A very important motivating factor for each individual scientist is usually furthering their own career as is the case with professionals from all fields and walks of life. The main way to further your scientific career and to gain reputation is to get your papers published in scientific journals. And a scientific journal is more likely to publish a paper that proposes a new theory or even contradicts an old one, instead of just confirming something that is already accepted. This means that there is no incentive for individual scientists and science teams to protect the status quo in science and instead everybody is trying to disprove as much as they can.

The biggest sensations in science happen when somebody devises an experiment that disproves something we had believed is true. This means that every scientist dreams and strives for ground-breaking discoveries, not confirming the status quo.

The Nobel prize is given to people that change and further our understanding of reality, not to those who oppose progress and defend the status quo.

A single study or experiment is not enough to prove a theory

It's time to tackle a misconception that is quite common and is constantly perpetuated by the media and journalists that are looking for sensations, but understand very little about the scientific process. What you often see on the news is people making claims like "Scientists just proved that..." or "A new study proves that...", but those statements are bound to be inaccurate.

As I mentioned while I was explaining the scientific process, for a theory to be accepted as proven beyond reasonable doubt, it needs to be put to the test and the experiments that support it need to be repeatable and consistent and supported by a large pool of data. This means that a single study by itself is not enough to prove pretty much anything as it rarely covers a scope of data that is sufficiently large and because repeatability hasn't been demonstrated.

So when a new study comes out with some sensational new claim, we need to keep in mind that all a new study can do is pose a question and there need to be a lot of experiments conducted until enough data has been gathered to prove the new theory. At the very least, the experiments from the study need to be repeated independently and confirmed to be yielding consistent results.

Our misunderstanding of science and our mistaken view that one study is enough to prove anything allows many "alternative" scientists to make bold claims based on experiments with methodological problems and by cherrypicking data. And since most of us do not turn to other sources to check if the experiment is in fact repeatable, we accept the sensationalist claims as proven. This happens because we fail to understand that a single study does not clear the bar on proof for a theory or a hypothesis and is not enough to assert anything as fact. On top of this, those "alternative" scientists get to claim that "the scientific establishment" is in a conspiracy to mute their valuable research and since the average person doesn't realize how unlikely that is and how there is no real scientific establishment, they believe "the poor victim of conspiracy" with all of their claims that usually end up being wrong.

This is why it's essential that everybody realizes that a single study doesn't prove anything and scientific proof can be established only when piles of studies and data have been compiled and when all of the data available supports the proposed hypothesis.

Conclusion

It is our responsibility to be informed about how science work so we have a better chance at evaluating if claims about science are true or false. The misconceptions about science are very common and we need to educate those around us and not allow them to spread as not accepting science is a position against progress and against a brighter and more fascinating future for our species.

I hope this information will allow people to be less confused about claims and news about science!

Science is fascinating especially when you know how it works!