Science, Self-correction, and Puzzle Pieces

I have always had a curiosity regarding science. As a child, I would ask my parents a billion questions about the world. Long after their patience had worn out, I would still have this nagging interest in how everything biological worked. Later, I became fascinated with the idea of solving the worlds mysteries with the scientific method and how the conclusions of science are added together to form a more complete understanding. I had this idea of truth after truth being discovered like individual puzzle pieces that, eventually, would all be put together in one complete picture.

With a nearly complete Bachelor of Science in Genetics, Cellular Biology and Development, my love and understanding of this method has become more informed and realistic. For those that do not have a science background, the scientific method is based on skepticism: one can never prove a hypothesis, only support it or disprove it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t lead to the immediately neat puzzle pieces I once used to describe scientific fact. The process isn’t over once a piece of data or a conclusion is published, it is then scrutinized and manipulated by the scientific community. Its conclusions are also related to, and can change the interpretation of, previous findings.

This process of self-correction in science is one of the reasons that I have faith that scientific study will eventually points into the more correct direction. For example, in class we have discussed eugenics and have tried to justify this ‘mistake’ in science by looking at the social situation surrounding it. What we haven’t talked about was exactly how this theory was perceived and rectified in the scientific community. During this time of history, there were two paradigms of genetic inheritance: Galton’s quantitative genetics and Mendel’s single gene theory. Even as Galton’s theory was approved of by society and applied to social concepts, there were many who heatedly debated that Mendel’s work with pea characteristics could be better applied to humans. Despite the initial popularity of Galton’s theory (and the deaths of hundreds of Mendel’s supporters in political movements), years of new research gradually led more to support Mendelian genetics, now the backbone of modern genetics. It is this self-correction that brings forth the ‘scientific facts’ that will withstand the tests of years of research. (On an interesting side note, Galton’s statistical genetics, despite having been the basis of eugenics, is by no means rejected in the scientific community. It is now being applied with some success to complex human diseases such as asthma, diabetes, and hypertension.)

Discovering the process by which what we ‘know’ is modified by new findings to become more complete and certain has increased my faith in science. With each new finding, our current knowledge is challenged and, if found lacking, adapted. While new publications should be taken with a grain of salt, I think we can have faith that the process called science will eventually mold each puzzle piece into its correct shape, so we can confidently use it to build a picture of the universe.