Settled Science?

Lately I am noticing more and more people (politicians, media commentators, even scientists) stating that various scientific issues are beyond dispute and therefore are “settled science.” I was encouraged to read an editorial by David Deming (a University of Oklahoma professor) who declared that “settled science” is an oxymoron. If you know anything about the history of science, you know that science is always discovering more and thus challenging previous assumptions and conclusions.

As an example, Professor Deming tells the story of Aristotle and Galileo. “Aristotle, who lived and wrote in the fourth century B.C., was one of the greatest geniuses the world has ever known. . . . Aristotle’s physics were accepted as correct for nearly two thousand years. In 1534, faculty at the University of Paris officially asserted that the works of Aristotle were ‘the standard and basis of all philosophic enquiry.’”

“Aristotle taught that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. Over the centuries, a few unreasonable persons expressed skeptical concerns. But the consensus was that the physics of motion were described by Aristotle’s dicta. The science was settled.”

“Around the year 1591, an irascible young instructor at the University of Pisa demonstrated that Aristotle was wrong. He climbed to the top of the tower of Pisa and dropped cannonballs of unequal weight that hit the ground simultaneously. Aristotelean professors on the faculty were embarrassed. The university administration responded by not renewing Galileo’s contract, thus ridding themselves of a troublemaker who challenged the accepted consensus.”

Four hundred years later, we still seem to be having trouble accepting the fact that scientific assumptions and conclusions may have to change. Challenge Darwinism, climate change, or a handful of other scientific ideas and you will be told that the science is settled. That wasn’t true in the 16th century, and it’s not true in the 21st century. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.