Saturday, June 9, 2012

Collect data, test, revise theory, repeat....

Carlo Rovelli, theoretical physicist and author (The First Scientist) is excellent on how science works at Edge.

Science is not about certainty. Science is about finding the most reliable way of thinking, at the present level of knowledge. Science is extremely reliable; it's not certain. In fact, not only it's not certain, but it's the lack of certainty that grounds it. Scientific ideas are credible not because they are sure, but because they are the ones that have survived all the possible past critiques, and they are the most credible because they were put on the table for everybody's criticism.

Collect data, test, organize results in a theory, collect more data, test, revise theory, repeat.

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