Settled Science

Einstein was a very bright fellow. He understood that science is never settled ... old theories will forever be replaced by newer, more informed ones. Therefore Galileo’s notion of gravity as a simple undiscriminating force of nature, later updated by Newton’s Law which included relative masses, could be debunked by calling it a “warp in the space-time continuum.” Sometime in the future, Einstein will be debunked by some upstart scientist ... an on and on into the indefinite future.

Is this wrong? Why can’t science be forever settled? Simple. Because we keep discovering new things. Darwin is being relegated to the dustbin of history by advances in DNA science. So is Freud by advances in brain science. And so will be other Nobel Prize winning scientist for as long as these Norwegians believe that we have found the ultimate answer to anything “scientific.” (Global warming?)

And this is not bad. It is the way science works ... and will continue to work. The thing that might worry me is what happens when scientists get it wrong. Did we really understand everything about nuclear fission before we tested that first A-bomb? I kind of doubt it ... but the best minds turned out to be right enough that we didn’t annihilate ourselves.

But there are many things about atomic energy production that we still don’t understand. Does this mean we should stop our quest for harnessing this fundamental energy source? Of course not! But we should insist that we not rush into (or away from) scientific conclusions based upon any uninformed political motivations.

Know what I mean?