Monday, March 28, 2005

Is Science Faked?

Is science faked? I remember in high school I managed to disprove the "law" of conservation of mass. To this day, I have no idea what I did wrong. Later in college, I seem to remember doing a lot of fudging on numbers in labs or I'd report my true findings which didn't seem to support what the text book said would be happening. This makes me wonder, is there proof for the equations used in science? It seems that the equations are more a predictor of what kinda might happen, instead of what really will happen. How do I know that generations of scientists haven't been fudging data to get the results they want? How do I know that the "laws" really are laws if I need a multi-million dollar machine to see the expected result?

Now it may be that the "laws" taught in the introductory science labs I took were overly simplistic, ignoring other factors to make the math and concepts easier to understand. But, if the students don't have all the information, then don't give them labs where they are expected to show something happens, when it doesn't or can't be seen with the lousy equipment provided.

I guess on the bright side, it did give me a healthy skepticism in science.

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