Science is not synonymous with knowledge, nor can it reveal or add any knowledge. Knowledge is gained by experience, tangible events that leave evidence. Knowledge can be gained by the average person by consulting the TV guide to find out what is on the TV tonight. Hunter-gathers gain knowledge of a high accuracy by trial and error, learning which plants can be eaten and which cannot, and pass this down, generation to generation, without the scientific method being applied once. A toddler may learn that stove plates are burning hot and painful to the touch by touching one in ignorance.
Any action that replaces ignorance with knowledge is learning. Learning can proceed without the so called ``scientific method''-if indeed such a thing exists. Knowledge is gained independent of science. And such knowledge, gained independent of science, is no less reliable than that gained by way of science.
But the question was not ``What is knowledge?'' but what is science.
Science is about testing knowledge. If the toddler, after getting burnt, had again reached out and touched the stove plate willfully to see if it is really hot and can cause pain or its injury was simply chance event, that would be an act of science. It would also be stupid, but it is never the less, a scientific exercise. The act of science makes the toddler more confident in its conclusions. Had the toddler been told the plate would be hot and purposely touched to test this assertion, that would of been an even better example of what science is.
People make mistakes, and these mistakes have a nasty habit of perpetuating themselves in society as inherited knowledge. It is right that we question the knowledge we inherit. There is every possibility that it is wrong (totally or in part).
Richard Feynman defined science as: the result that it is worthwhile rechecking by new direct experience, and not necessarily trusting the [human] race['s] experience from the past.1
But science does not always proceed with neat logical false/true tests. In fact science rarely, if ever, allows one to arrive definitively at the ``true'' option, instead only yielding a ``provisional true pending new evidence''. Inference is another method by which evidence can be collated to ascertain the confidence level of a article of knowledge. Had the toddler known about other evidence, such as electrical resistance that heats conductors, it could of inferred the plate would always be hot when switched on and in working order. The toddler could of taken some water, and splashed it on the stove and seen it sputter and boil on the hot plate. From this the toddler could of inferred the hot plate was indeed hot. And had the toddler known, from other experience, that hot things burn and that causes pain, the toddler could of inferred that the hot stove plate would of hurt it.
Inference and logical tests are employed in many fields. In history the historical accounts are compared to evidence and records. Economists search the markets for patterns that can be used to forecast and analyze market trends with enough certainty that people would put countless billions on the line. Researchers (be they physicists or psychologists) gather data from experiments, surveys or analysis of distant stars. From these data they infer to the best explanative theory, or refute others.
The science practiced, is the analysis and testing of the evidence, to arrive at a logical conclusion. Experiments are a critical facet of science, not because they yield knowledge with some inbuilt confidence, but because they are by their nature a test of the prevailing knowledge as well as that produced from it.
For an example, lets consider the central tenet of neuroscience: that nervous impulses travel along nerves as an electrical current, and these currents travel down defined paths to defined parts of the brain to culminate in physical awareness or reaction. An experiment designed to test the effect of a compound on a particular pathway by bathing a slice of brain in a buffer with the compound not only tests the effect of the compound but also the underlying theory. A measured response in accordance of that predicted by theory is support for that theory, even if the actual experiment fails. A negative result is as informative as a positive result. An unsurprising negative result tells us that we can take confidence in the underlying body of knowledge on which that experiment is based. This is a positive outcome.
In all cases, all of us, are doing science. We are testing or analyzing the nature of our circumstances to arrive at the best possible course of action. We are refining the way we live our lives by ingesting new data and discarding methods that do not work. This is also what Einstein believed: The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
But why is it important to refine our everyday thinking?
Religion is often associated with blind faith, but the Judeo-Christian tradition advocates that we, as people, stop and think and test the quality of our circumstances and information we are employing. The reason for this is simple: our method of retaining knowledge is defective. It is equally efficient at retaining and distributing sound knowledge as it is at retaining and distributing inaccurate knowledge.
In modern times this is most obvious in racist propaganda that seems to have no problem being spread. If it were not for the scientific enquiry into the aptitude of people, the racist myth that Africans are stupider than Europeans, would persist. As Jared Diamond points out in his book, Guns, germs and steel, dark skin and allegedly socially primitive Papau New Guineaians, are on average, smarter and more resourceful than their super educated peers.
Another myth perpetuated in modern society is that the medieval Papalcy held that the earth was the centre of creation, and that this was church doctrine. If one scours the history of the matter it is plainly obvious that this is the doctrine of Aristotle. It just so happened that all the professors of the day were affiliated to the Papalcy, and they chose to believe in Aristotle rather than Copernicus or Galileo (who was imprisoned because he ridiculed the Pope's authority). However, they did not doubt Kepler's math documenting the orbits of the planets around the sun.
By amassing new evidence by investigation and exploration, existing articles of knowledge can be tested, and new articles assumed to be accurate in the place of ones proven inaccurate. From this is should be clear that science is not the search for truth. It is plain and simple, the search for lies in the hope that when we have conceived and sought every lie, only the truth will remain.
Unless people retain a healthy skepticism, this noble task of science will go undone. Scientists who cease to question the theories they study should be forcibly retired because they have become useless to society. In fact, they have become a danger to society.
A scientific enquiry can dismiss faulty articles of knowledge, or lend support to articles that cannot be dismissed based on the evidence. The more evidence that can be found to the support the article of knowledge, the more trustworthy it becomes, but it never really becomes true.
Because much of what will be discovered, still needs to be discovered, vast stores of knowledge are not at our disposal to formulate the theories-articles of presumed knowledge-that can be tested. Not dismissing a particular article of knowledge after logical evaluation in inference to the evidence, does not mean that new evidence will not one day come about forcing that article's dismissal and the formulation of a new article.
In the case of medical technologists (widely regarded as not being scientists because they are not making land breaking discoveries nor winning Nobel prizes), performing tests to ascertain if the patient really has the disease deduced from the symptoms or not, science is also performed. Arrogant researchers demeaning such work, by claiming they are not practicing science, miss the issue completely. That it does not add any new knowledge does not make it not science. The pathological test is perhaps the most poignant act of science: taking a hypothesis (formulated by a doctor based on symptoms, some of which may only be coincidental to the true condition) and testing it. Without this scientific act there is a good chance the patient may die.
The act of science either falsifies the theory under consideration, or allows one to take confidence in it-pending new evidence. Without such an act of science (as described above), the doctors diagnosis was only a slightly better shot in the dark as self medication based on a medical textbook by a layman.
Science does not preclude supernatural explanations, but it does require that all rational natural explanations are excluded based on the evidence. If a cancer patient us suddenly and completely healed, in such as way as to be totally contrary to the current body of natural scientifically tested knowledge, then it is safe to assume a miracle-a supernatural event-has transpired. However, such a conclusion is as tentative as any other conclusion drawn from limited evidence, as is the kind that man can only produce.
``I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.'' said Dr. Feynman.
There are researchers who regard their theories as fact, and purport them as such in the popular media. This gives people a false sense of security that can come to damage society (e.g. Saddam Huissein has weapons of mass destruction). These researchers also berate others who disagree, claiming that science has shown this or that (HIV/AIDS proponents vs AIDS ``dissidents''), when in fact science only ever shows things are not so. Such pseudoscientists rarely refer to the actual evidence on which their theories tentatively depend.
Researchers selling Darwinism rarely refer to Darwin's finches today-perhaps because it has been found that Darwin's finches actually change very quickly, not gradually at all, as he had proposed. Because the evidence for a theory is always changing, it is dangerous for the pseudoscientist to point to it, else they be shown fallible and loose their expert status in society.
Feynman defined science another way: ``Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.''
Pseudoscience has gained a foothold in the academic system through the invention of research programs, aimed at generating knowledge-i.e. positive results. As discussed already, science is not about gathering knowledge. Knowledge can be gained in the course of doing experiments or making observations, but it is not the whole nor the goal of science.
With funding as a strong incentive, modern day ``scientists'' have little choice but to develop into experts-pseudoscientists-who have to support theories to justify their salary, rather than try and break them down to give us a sure base of knowledge we can trust to build bridges, grow crops, manage our money, or treat disease with pharmaceuticals.
The pseudoscientific institutions of today do not guard our body of knowledge against error, but tend to pervert it to the needs of their theories. Pseudoscience is the biggest single threat to humanity.
``... You have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments-but be patient and listen to all the evidence-to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at.'' said Dr. Feynman.
Professional researchers cannot be relied on to be wholly truthful in the reporting of their conclusions, as inherently they are forced to produce positive results to enforce their respective research paradigm and its theories, in order to attain funding. It is the duty of every person to demand to see the evidence for themselves and upon examining choose to either agree or disagree.
Safe guards exist in science in the form of peer review (the evidence and conclusions are analyzed by experts in the field), alas negative results are rarely published. The peer review system is not fool proof. There are many instances (so it is rumored) of articles being rejected by reviewers because the results conflict with their research. Also, such journals either charge for publication or rely heavily on advertising. Thus money is able to creep into the publication of articles. Articles that could undermine the standing of an advertiser are rejected. While research that could undermine researcher funders is never published.
There are two obstacles to the public performing science on subjects such as astrophysics or pharmacy: education and education.
Firstly, school science education is highly deficient. Students are not taught science as much as they are taught definitions and ``facts''. They are not taught how to question, nor how to logically evaluate a given set of evidences.
What escapes many, is that science can be practiced every day by all people. Whether it is by optimizing the procedure by which you do housework, or whether the statements by the politician on the TV are really supported by the evidence. Is Communism really such a hot idea? What does the best available evidence suggest?
Alas, secondly, to evaluate some evidence a technical education is required, rendering the publicly available research articles beyond the understanding of most people. However, much of the data available from clinical trials etc... is intelligible to the average man if presented in an understandable format. It is the duty of researchers to present their data in such a manner, for easy analysis by the people most at risk of research error, and in an unbiased way. That is to say, without forcing their conclusions on the reader, only giving the data with an explanation of what the test was for, and what data suggests.
While this may threaten to undermine the faith of people in research fields such as medicine, this is not necessarily a bad thing. For too long the medical doctor has been viewed as an all powerful god, who can dish out medications with impunity. If people instead haboured a healthy skepticism for their doctor and researchers, a lot more errors could be caught before they claim lives.
A public enabled to judge the legitimacy of the evidence and accuracy of the conclusions drawn from it, is a public empowered to use knowledge wisely. Without it, the public is held captive in thought by pseudoscientific experts. Ability to judge for one self is the core attribute of freedom, and it is a freedom denied us by those who hide the evidence needed to formulate ones own conclusions.
This is best illustrated by the USA battle to include intelligent design theory in the class room of school kids. The subject of life and human origins has deep metaphysical significance. The insistence of proponents of evolution-by-random-chance to have only their side taught in schools is in effect intellectual tyranny. The intelligent design is based on legitimate evidence and argued logically from these evidences in exactly the same manner how the pro-evolution-by-random-chance stance is argued. The issue is not intelligent design vs evolution-by-random-chance, but that people are being denied the equal opportunity to draw their own conclusions based on the evidence.
All education should be directed at teaching people how to judge for themselves, and break the secret code-the jargon-of researchers, so as to logically infer the best explanation from the knowledge they can have the most confidence in.
Students need to be taught that science is doubting and testing the validity of knowledge passed down to us. Students need to be taught how to judge for themselves after referring to the best available evidence. The public needs to be taught that its opinion is just as valid as that of degreed professionals, if not more so because they bare the brunt of the decisions of degreed professionals.
1Lecture presented at the 15th annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, 1966 in New York City, and published in The Physics Teacher 1968 7:313-320.