Over at HotAir, Jazz Shaw demonstrates (accidentally) how scientists and the public manage to talk past each other:
It’s not that a lot of laymen don’t believe in science. It’s that there are different levels of established scientific fact and theory. And when the scientific community starts adopting their own favorite theories as established fact – even when work is still being done to either support or disprove them and the subject matter is hideously complex for current technology to master – well, Houston, we have a problem.
Well, no. Words like ‘hypothesis’ and ‘theory’, when referring to scientific ideas, are scientific terms and must be understood from that perspective, no matter their usage in the vernacular. With science, even the semantics are precise business. The ‘established facts’ to which Mr. Shaw refers are in fact well-established theories, theories which have withstood much testing over a long time. (See, e.g., Einstein's famous theories.) But, as is always the case with proper science, even those facts – those theories – are constantly subject to further review. Scientists – proper scientists – are uber-skeptics. Stone-writing is reserved for more … holy works.
A scientific fact falls into one of two categories: If it is a descriptive fact, e.g. that when apples fall from Earth-bound trees they accelerate at a certain rate, then it is a law. If it is an explanatory fact, e.g. that apples ‘fall’ like that because of the relation of mass and space-time, accounting also for wind resistance, then it is a theory. The classic process for explanatory facts follows as such: hypothesis (which is probably what Mr. Shaw really means when he says ‘theory’) -> prediction -> test -> proof (theory) or disproof (bust). There is no route from theory to law, from explanatory to descriptive fact.
But, alas, scientists are also human, subject to the same whims and follies that drive everyone else. That is, they can be both intellectually and ordinarily dishonest where their (perceived) interests are too acute, leading to such nonsense as faked or suppressed data, or proxy data set forth as a substitute for direct evidence. The beauty of the scientific method is that such cranks and phonies will eventually be caught. They will probably make shabby excuses, or accuse their opponents of flat-worldism (cough..Mann..cough), but they will be caught.
Science, done right, is esoteric and hard to communicate to non-scientists, especially hard for the sort of nerd who is capable of the kind of technical work involved in good science. (I blame, too, the assholes who have so incompetently run our public schools, leaving the average person clueless about even the basics of how science works.) Public understanding is further plagued by clueless but breathless dolts reporters who think that the ability to copy a press release verbatim is sciency and good journalism, too. (/rant) The result is a terrible disconnect that will not be easy to fix, but the solution goes both ways: Scientists must work harder to clearly communicate difficult concepts and non-scientists must make a good-faith effort to understand – or shut up, which ever is more convenient.
