How to Make Sense Out of Science

PsuedoScience and Risk Analysis
modified from David H. Levy, September 20, 1998, Parade Magazine
Have you been baffled or bored by a science report? Have you ever had your hopes or fears raised by
the anouncement of a breakthrough or discover-- only to learn later that it wasn’t all it was
proclaimed to be. Here are some ways to improve your understanding.
The Skinny on Fat
Burning Food
Warning:
Devatation by El
Nino Predicted
When headlines such as these appear, their stories
become the subject of conversations around the
world-- talks spiced with optimisim and confusion.
Imagine the hopes raised in the millions battling
cancer. Did the news mean that pople never have
to worry about cancer again? Or that we all have to
worry about a catasrophe at the hands of El Nino?
Unfortunately scince dones workd that way. Itr
rarely arrives at final answers. People battleing
cancer or victims of El Nino may find this
frustrating, but the truth is the Nature does not
yield her secrets easily. Scince is done in
increments, where an idea is fashioned into an
experiment, the outcome leading to an increase in
knowledge.
Science is not a set of definitive results but a
way of understanding the world around us. Its real
work is slow. The scientific method, as many of us
learned in school, is a gradual process that begins
with observations that lead us to a purpose,
problem or question to be answered. It includes
gathering information about a specific question,
developing a hypothesis that answers the question,
and then performing an experiment that either
supports or disproves the hypothesis. In medicine,
when a new drug is proposed that might cure or
control a disease, it is first tested on a large random
group of people, and their reactions are then
compared with those of another random group not
given the drug. All reactions in both froups are
carefully recorded and compared, and the drug is
evaluated for its short term and long term effects.
All of this takes time - and patience.
It’s the result of course that makes the best
news-- not the years of quiet backwater work
that characterize the bulk of scientific inquiry.
After an experiment is concluded, the result
continues to be scrutinized. If it is submitted
for publicaton, it goes to a group of other
scientists, who review the work and evaluate
the methods, the data reported and the
conclusions drawn by the author. If the report
is judged worthy it is accepted for publication
by a professional journal or reported at a
conference. Those reports that catch the eye of
the news media become the basis of a press
release and announced to the world.
Science is too important, too
interesting and too much fun not
to be communicated accurately,
without misleading exaggeration
and in a way that we all can
understand.
The world may think that the announcement
signifies the end of the process, but this is only
the beginning. A publication is really a
challenge stating, “Here’s my result. Prove me
wrong!” Others researchers interested in the
same subject will try to repeat the experiment
and the more often the same result is

supported, the better the chances that the result is
sound or valid. Einstein was right when he said,
“No experiment can at any time prove me wrong.”
In August 1996, NASA announced the discovery in
Antarctica of a meteorite from Mars that might
contain evidence of ancient life on another world.
As President Clinton said that day, the possibility
that life had existed on Mars billions of years ago
was potentially one of the great discoveries of our
time. After the excitement word down and initial
papers were published, other researchers began
looking at samples from the same meteorite. Some
concluded that the “evidence of life” was most
likely contamination from Antarctic ice or that
there was nothing organic in the rock. Was this a
failure of science, as some news reports trumpeted?
No! It was a good example of the scientific
method working the way it is supposed to.
Preliminary findings are always tentative until the
weight of more evidence makes them more certain.
Scientists spend years on research, publish their
findings, and debate these findings with other
scientists. That’s how we learn. Like climbing a
steep mountain, we struggle up three feet and fall
back two. It’s a process filled with
disappointments and frustration (think about
Thomas Edison and the light bulb), but somehow
we keep on moving ahead in our knowledge about
the world around us.
Why Science Articles Are Sometimes Misleading
If you have trouble understanding science news
items it might be due to these problems.
•A poor understanding on the part of the writer
might give a story the wrong focus. For
example, the story about a recently observed
explosion in space compared it to the Big Bang-
- which most scientists believe, was the ultimate
blast that started the Universe. In fact, the two
events had nothing to do with each other. The
recent explosion was a large burst of gamma
rays from one tiny area of space. It was a larger
form of what astronomers see very often in
space and nowhere near the magnitude of the
Big Bang.
•Many scientific press releases seem bent on
convincing the world that their news is the
most important news of the year. But in our
fast-paced world, where scientific press releases
are issued at the rate of ten or more per day,
who judges which is the most important? Each
of them reports some new development,
written in a lively and simplified style that tries
to show that
the public
cannot live
without the
news.
•The headline is
often
misleading.
Journalists are
taught to write
headlines that
capture the audience. If one were to simply
scan headlines they might miss the true
interpretation of the event to the sensational
appeal to our interests.
The Scientific Method
Scientists are like detectives; they make
observations, gather evidence, and attempt to reach
conclusions. Suppose you were to buy a detective
story and upon opening the book you found only
empty pages except for a statement on the last page
which said: “Based on the evidence the Inspector
Gadget concluded the butler was the murderer”.
Exciting? Hardly! The detective’s methods and the
excitement of discovery during the investigation are
missing.... in other words, the process is the
convincing part of the story. To learn the
conclusions and products of science without
understanding how these conclusions were
formulated is like reading just the end of the
detective story. No wonder some scientific claims
are hard to swallow. Theories and principles are
important, but the process by which they are
produced is what science is all about. The process at
the heart of scientific discovery is called the scientific
method.
The Nature of Science
Check your understanding, can you.........
1. List the steps of the scientific method.
2. Write down 5 words associated with the
process of science.
3. Think of three questions that science
cannot answer?