Science, the protagonists often claim , is the authority on everything and what it says is the truth .
if so, why there has been so many revisions and in many a case total negation and repudiation of what has been theorized earlier.
The operative word is ‘theory’.
Science, in my view, is just that, nothing more.
List of mistakes by Science/Scientists(even this likely to change as what is said to incorrect may be called as correct later).
Seth Borenstein, the Associated Press‘s science correspondent, has given us a fine barometer by which to measure the scientific certainty that humans are heating the planet. He reports that the world’s climatologists are now gearing up to officially proclaim that they are 95 percent certain that humans are to blame for global warming.
That 5 percent gap may seem large. It is not. In science, nothing is 100 percent sure—not even the law of gravity.
According to Borenstein, here are a few things that scientists are just as or less certain of than climate change:
- that cigarettes kill
- the age of the universe
- that vitamins make you healthy
- that dioxin in Superfund sites is dangerous
Here are a couple I’ll add myself. Scientists are more certain that humans are causing climate change than:
- that string theory describes reality
- the rate the universe expanded after the big bang.
The Periodic Table, The Bible of Chemistry.
We like to think of the periodic table as immutable. It isn’t – atoms don’t always weigh the same, says Celeste Biever.
No such thing as Reptiles.
The traditional group Reptilia things like lizards, crocodiles, snakes, tortoises plus many extinct groups – is not a true clade, says Graham Lawton.
Nuclear Fission Confusion.
We’ve built the bomb. We’ve built reactors. But the whole enterprise of nuclear fission is based on a misunderstanding.
Chemistry a confusion.
Chemistry is a much fuzzier business than we thought.
Gene is not a Gene.
What defines life’s building blocks? It depends who you ask, says Michael Le Page.
Ecology.
Ask a taxonomist to estimate Earth’s total inventory of species, and they’ll probably say 30 million. That is almost certainly a huge overestimate, saysKate Douglas.
Whatever undergraduate physicists are told, magnetic poles do indeed enjoy the single life, says Richard Webb.
Einstein.
Albert Einstein’s towering reputation is only enhanced by his self-styled biggest blunder. It might not have been a mistake after all, says Richard Webb.
http://www.newscientist.com/special/rewriting-the-textbooks
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/things-scientists-are-less-sure-of-than-climate-change
Related Articles
- Science: As certain of climate change as of smoking (achangeinthewind.com)