CONSERVATION FOR THE REALIST

The great golden age of any civilization is marked by a flourishing of science: The Greeks and their astronomy, Egyptians and their medicine, the Inca and their agriculture. Our global history is marked by great scientific discoveries: the invention of the printing press, describing gravity, the industrial revolution, pasteurization, vaccines, the technological revolution. Science is the foundation of civilization – an adage more true today than at any other point in history with our reliance on technology, the internet, and the development of artificial intelligence.

Everything that we understand about the physical world has its roots in science. Why does your car stop when you put your foot on the brake? Why are teenagers angsty? Why does bread mold? Science happens when someone asks “why”. It is the body of knowledge produced as a result of humanity’s innate curiosity and desire to understand the world. Science, as defined by Oxford Languages, is “the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.”.

The creation of scientific information is a process that has been fine-tuned and strictly adhered to for centuries. Since Sir Francis Bacon developed it in 1620, all scientific research is conducted through the scientific method. At the risk of sounding like your 6^th grade science teacher, allow me to explain what that is. 

Any scientific inquiry begins with observations. After making those observations, scientists ask why these observations are happening and develop a testable explanation – your hypothesis. You test this hypothesis by running an experiment. Based on the results of the experiment, conclusions are made or otherwise a different hypothesis is developed and retested. Most of us probably did something similar in middle school with a baking soda volcano or a balloon car.

Through this process, our understanding of the world develops.

Peer review is the vital step in this process that keeps science honest. Scientists are people. They make mistakes and have biases just like anyone else. A scientist’s research must undergo extensive review and commentary by their peers before being published. This process can take years and many revisions. It ensures that the methods used in the study were ethical and practical, that calculations are correct, that conclusions are logical based on the data, and that there are no ulterior motives hidden within the research (such as biased funding). Peer review is a sacred aspect of the scientific method and arguably the most important step.

Scientific understanding of anything is based on many trials. A concept does not become a theory until it has been proven to occur in every single trial without fail and with no other logical alternative explanation. You can trace animal evolution for millions of years through many different methods (DNA, phenotype, or bone structure, for example) across every species and at every location on the globe. Thousands of experiments have been done with the same conclusion. There exists no other logical explanation for these observations except that life originated from a common ancestor. Hence, the theory of evolution prevails.

This willingness of the scientific community to repeatedly revisit prior “discoveries” can be confusing for many non-scientists and dangerous in the hands of politicians. Uncertainty in science has a different context than uncertainty in our everyday lives. Nothing in life or science will ever be 100%, hands-down, completely certain, all the time. That is fundamentally not how either works. A good scientist will always allow for a margin of error – a level of uncertainty – and will state that in their conclusions. The scientific staple of stating uncertainty is often picked up as a trigger word and overblown to sow doubt and division amongst the public. 

The way to determine ‘certainty’ is to look at how many independent studies on a particular topic come to the same conclusion – essentially to look for consensus among the scientific community. When many well-conducted and thorough studies reach the same conclusion, it is the closest to fact as human understanding will ever get. 

A fact is something that can be repeatedly proven. Every time anyone puts 1+1 into the calculator, it always equals 2. But what if no one ever told you 1+1=2? You enter it into the calculator 10 times, and you think, well maybe 1+1 is 2. The more times you do it, the more convinced you become that 1+1=2 is a fact. 

Science is being abused. The scientific process is being blasphemed by interest-group-funded research that produces conclusions based on what benefits the bottom line instead of the facts. The peer review process is being tampered with to rig conclusions that support agendas. Uncertainty is blown out of proportion to discredit entire bodies of research and consensus is misrepresented. Science is being politicized, manipulated, and distorted to suit individual wants and not present the true state of scientific understanding.

This is alarming. We cannot function as a society without good science. Science-based decisions are the only ones that we can rely on to do the most good for the most people for the longest amount of time. We must listen to social science, economic science, medical science, environmental science, and climate science to govern the way we interact. These sciences give us the most-informed understanding of how things work. To ignore them is to fly in the face of logic and reason. If a decision is not based in science, then it is hardly more informed than a guess. Which would you rather have shaping our society?

Science should not have an agenda. Science should not be used to reinforce pre-existing beliefs. It should be understood as an entity of its own, a body of knowledge which can best inform our decisions. Scientists spend their entire lives studying their area of expertise. Trust them when the majority of them are alarmed.

Case in point: When 99% of climate-related scientists agree that climate change is happening, don’t you think there is something there worth being concerned about?