"Just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true."

[darxus]

The Truth Wears Off, newyorker.com. Humans are not so good at science.

Link from mzrowan.

Comments

[volta]

That was an interesting read, thanks for the link.

Yes Science is Hard

[agnosticoracle.livejournal.com]

There has been a good discussion of this over a science blogs, a good summary was given by PZ (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/science_is_not_dead.php).

Yes, science is hard. Especially when you are dealing with extremely complex phenomena with multiple variables, it can be extremely difficult to demonstrate the validity of a hypothesis (I detest the word "prove" in science, which we don't do, and we know it; Lehrer should, too). What the decline effect demonstrates, when it occurs, is that just maybe the original hypothesis was wrong. This shouldn't be disturbing, depressing, or troubling at all, except, as we see in his article, when we have scientists who have an emotional or profit-making attachment to an idea.

That's all this fuss is really saying. Sometimes hypotheses are shown to be wrong, and sometimes if the support for the hypothesis is built on weak evidence or a highly derived interpretation of a complex data set, it may take a long time for the correct answer to emerge. So? This is not a failure of science, unless you're somehow expecting instant gratification on everything, or confirmation of every cherished idea.