Everything that we ‘know’ is based on an assumption or two. Scientific theories and principles arise because of the sheer preponderance of evidence that supports a conclusion. We accept gravity as a scientific truth because Newton’s apple-falling-out-of-a-tree observation inspired thousands of other spin-off experiments that confirmed his theory, and no one has credibly disproved the theory of gravity (perhaps with the exception of happenings on the subatomic scale).
Nearly all disciplines that present groundbreaking theories or uncover novel patterns in the world from analyzing collected data are held to the “statistically significant” caveat, otherwise known as the all-powerful p-value. In ecology and other natural sciences, one must demonstrate using various statistical tests that there is a 95 percent probability that a given result is not random. In other words, there’s a 5 percent chance that a lot of what we ‘know’ is a fluke.
Basically, knowledge requires the “knower” to be rational, to trust in the logical arguments proposed by the scientific method and to trust in the scientists and researchers in all disciplines that seek to better understand the world in which we live. If 97 percent of scientists believe that modern climate change is caused by human actions, we must accept that. If the CDC tells us that smokers are 15 to 30 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers, we must trust in that too.
Most importantly, the formation of a body of knowledge worthy of the public’s trust requires scientists to be brutally honest. Scientists take the pursuit of knowledge very seriously, as do the agencies that employ and fund them. I had to sit through several hours of research ethics training before I could step foot in a UT lab as an undergraduate research assistant. Report all steps of your methodology. Fudging data, manipulating a design or selectively reporting results in a way that skews their significance is morally wrong and is a death sentence to your scientific career. While only 2 percent of scientists reportedly admit to falsifying results, these cases of fraud are often treated as celebrity-level scandals that destroy the public’s faith in science.
It’s admittedly difficult to thrive under the constraints of funding, job security and scientific honesty. When funding agencies and employers, in the U.S. in particular, prefer to see positive results and not just “trial and error” studies, there’s little room for scientific study purely in pursuit of knowledge. To lower the incidence of fraud and fabrication in research, we must stop seeing studies that do not report statistically significant results as failures. These studies may demonstrate that prevailing beliefs in a field are untrue, or that new methodology must be designed to better address specific questions. All scientific studies advance a growing body of knowledge in some way, and our definition of success must reflect the variety of ways that feats of science can succeed.
In science, we trust the scientists that have come before us and have built a foundation of knowledge on which we build future studies. As global citizens, we trust researchers to respect the nobility of this pursuit that informs so many of our daily choices and behaviors. In return, we, the public, agree to be rational when evaluating scientific findings. Science in this light is a trust-filled collaboration of producers and consumers of knowledge, a relationship whose value cannot be understated.
No, science is not perfect. But perfection was never the goal.
Kenna Rewcastle is a senior in college scholars. She can be reached at [email protected].
