Science and the search for the truth

In this week’s article On fact and fraud: Cautionary tales from the front lines of science, Goodstein asks the reader to consider the value we place on science given the numerous examples of fraud. The main point I took from this article is the danger that exists amongst lay people accepting the word of scientists without any other information. In our society, we place science on a pedestal and accept the word of science as the ultimate truth. But as Goodstein shows us, this is often not the case. He has shown the reader a selection of scientific cases that were proven to be invalid but the results of these experiments already had an effect on ordinary people. Lay people don’t have the opportunity or often the courage to question the findings of science and we are often forced to accept the word of scientists as being absolute. The scientists mentioned in the article may have had good intentions and their fault was that they already knew what they wanted their experiment to say before it even started. At the same time, we have to consider the word of scientists who do not have good intentions and allow their position of esteem to be purchased. The best example of this is scientists today that deny climate change in the face of undeniable evidence. I believe these scientists are using their position and the trust people have placed on their words to manipulate the public and support big business. As University of Saskatchewan Professor Paul Orlowski points out, these are the same scientists who were denying the link between smoking and cancer only a generation before. From the examples provided by Goodstein and the continuing scientific debate on climate change, we can see that the findings of science are often not an absolute truth.

The Goodstein article also reminded me of another issue in science; the validation of research under unethical means. As a history guy, I was thinking about human experimentation conducted by the Nazi’s during the Holocaust. To what extent should we use any Nazi research? If the findings are valid, but were gathered during unethical means, can we use them as scientific knowledge?