Blinded By Science

The greatest obstacle that scientists face in
communicating concepts to the general public is that
that very public has a distorted idea of what science
actually IS. Science isn't just a body of knowledge
which we learn in middle school and then take
on"faith". It is a process by which theories
(explanations) for phenomena of nature are examined
and tested--and the most powerful test of a theory is
it's ability to predict future events or behaviors in
nature. And this is not tested once or twice, but
continually challenged and examined from every
possible angle. What the public often sees as
conflict or controversy within scientific circles is
actually the process at work as theories are checked
and rechecked by the originating and other
researchers. Science has been described as
"Imagination in a Straitjacket" because of the way
the process constantly checks and corrects itself. In
other words, science isn't a noun; it is a verb.