Have you heard any say lately that no one of responsible rank will deny this or that scientific theory anymore? Two come to mind, Evolution and Global Climate Change. People have used this tactic to place their opposition into a category that one can ignore because “everybody knows it now” and anyone who would deny such a thing is just not informed. However, a quick glance at science history should make us all quake when we here that rhetoric.
Science abounds with research being denied because an influential person didn’t think that was the way it worked. Let’s just look at one example. We all know about sunspots and solar flares as well as the impact they can have on earth. But it wasn’t always so. Back in 1892, Lord Kevin, yes the man whose name the absolute temperature scale bears, was president of the Royal Society. With one speech, this colossus of science declared that he had calculations which demonstrated that the sun could not possibly be responsible for fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field. His calculations and theory were orrect except he made the wrong assumptions. He set back solar research for years. His attitude was that no respectable scientist would ever link solar flares to Earth’s magnetic field again, it was just science denial to ever think such a thing, let alone waste valuable research pursing those thoughts.
Fortunately, he was wrong about that too. Other scientists believed their observations and continued the research eventually bringing us to the actual knowledge we now have. They ignored science denial and pushed on.
Lord Kevin had often expressed his attitude about scientific knowledge. He said, “When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it.” He forgot to say that one had to start with the right assumptions as well as the mathematics that
correctly express the physics.
Lord Kevin advanced scientific knowledge during his lifetime more than most of his peers. He forgot that no one has a complete understanding of the physics of our universe and all scientists should keep an open mind and continue to examine and measure events in this universe.
At this time, it is not possible to scientifically prove what controls either Evolution or Global Climate Change. Or that either one is true, there are a lot of problems with them both. Let’s hope our scientists don’t succumb to science denial pressures. Unfortunately, too often, government
officials who control research purse strings do.
The story of solar research is interestingly told by Stuart
Clark in The Sun Kings, Princeton University Press,
2007.
Science abounds with research being denied because an influential person didn’t think that was the way it worked. Let’s just look at one example. We all know about sunspots and solar flares as well as the impact they can have on earth. But it wasn’t always so. Back in 1892, Lord Kevin, yes the man whose name the absolute temperature scale bears, was president of the Royal Society. With one speech, this colossus of science declared that he had calculations which demonstrated that the sun could not possibly be responsible for fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field. His calculations and theory were orrect except he made the wrong assumptions. He set back solar research for years. His attitude was that no respectable scientist would ever link solar flares to Earth’s magnetic field again, it was just science denial to ever think such a thing, let alone waste valuable research pursing those thoughts.
Fortunately, he was wrong about that too. Other scientists believed their observations and continued the research eventually bringing us to the actual knowledge we now have. They ignored science denial and pushed on.
Lord Kevin had often expressed his attitude about scientific knowledge. He said, “When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it.” He forgot to say that one had to start with the right assumptions as well as the mathematics that
correctly express the physics.
Lord Kevin advanced scientific knowledge during his lifetime more than most of his peers. He forgot that no one has a complete understanding of the physics of our universe and all scientists should keep an open mind and continue to examine and measure events in this universe.
At this time, it is not possible to scientifically prove what controls either Evolution or Global Climate Change. Or that either one is true, there are a lot of problems with them both. Let’s hope our scientists don’t succumb to science denial pressures. Unfortunately, too often, government
officials who control research purse strings do.
The story of solar research is interestingly told by Stuart
Clark in The Sun Kings, Princeton University Press,
2007.