Notes

Misinformation runs rampant on social media, where individuals tout their ideas and lies as the truth. Therefore, it is unsurprising that people are tempted to treat even scientific theories with skepticism. Yet, while some skepticism is healthy, it is irrational to believe that all scientific theories, defined and supported in the present day by the procedures of the scientific method and peer review, will be proven inaccurate.

Some ancient ideas perceived as facts have been proved erroneous, justifying a touch of skepticism. In the past, churches claimed that all planets revolved around the Earth. In old diagrams of the galaxy, Earth is drawn in the center. While this seems nonsensical today, it conformed with the human-centric beliefs of that time. Yet, Galileo approached this idea with a more open mind. As an impeccable astronomer, he was convinced by his measurements that instead of the Earth, the sun served as the centerpiece of our galaxy, and persuaded others as well. His ability to question the norm enabled astronomers to better understand our universe.

Yet, the example above is an exception: most present-day scientific facts do not merit extreme skepticism, due to the meticulous procedures that scientists take to avoid mistakes. They follow the scientific method, where through cycles of hypothesis creation and data collection, attempt to confirm or deny their suspicions. The scientific method also outlines methods to ensure reproducibility, or the ability for other scientists to use the same procedure to confirm the data-driven results. This procedure, which was developed well after example above, ensures that when a scientist claims that something is true, there is some strong evidence to support the conclusion. The scientific community also enforces a peer-review process, where to publish a paper, other experts in the field must check the results. The experts serve as another gatekeeper to ensure that the conclusions are valid, and in particular, that the results has not been extrapolated to inaccurate conclusions. While admittedly these procedures do not guarantee that every scientific fact is correct, it requires scientific facts to be as close to the truth as experts and scientists' observations allow it to be, which is almost always sufficient to ensure that it would not be proven false in the future. For example, Newton's laws of physics have been known for centuries, and they have yet to be proven wrong. Thus, while there may be a counterexample somewhere extremely far away in the universe, at least for our observed environments, it holds true.

Nobody can guarantee that every scientific fact posited today is error-free. Galileo was the first to show this, and he will like be followed by others. Yet, the rigor required for a claim to be a scientific fact, the application of the scientific process and peer-review, ensure that we are as close to the truth as possible. Thus, while some skepticism is healthy, we should not expect that every fact is wrong.