• Question: why do scientists always believe their view is correct, even if they havent prooved it yet? are your predictions always correct?

    Asked by churchillcampbell to Ben, Clare, Ezzy, Mario, Sam on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Mario Campanelli

      Mario Campanelli answered on 16 Mar 2012:


      I do not agree on that. scientists by definition should always be ready to change their mind.

    • Photo: Ben Smart

      Ben Smart answered on 16 Mar 2012:


      Scientists don’t always believe their predictions are correct. If we haven’t proved something then we don’t believe it. We simply believe what the evidence tells us, and we’re always ready to change our mind if the evidence tells us to.

      Being a scientist is like being a detective in a murder case. We look for clues and evidence. Lots of people might think that a certain person is the murderer, but we only look at what the clues and evidence tell us. If all the clues and evidence say that someone else is the murderer then that’s who we’ll arrest. If a new piece of evidence turns up though that shows that we were wrong, then we’ll accept that we were wrong and change our minds.

    • Photo: Sam Vinko

      Sam Vinko answered on 16 Mar 2012:


      I don’t think thats the case at all.
      Actually, it quite the opposite. A good scientist will always have some degree of doubt in everything, and only draw conclusions from what is observed to be a fact. It is important to note though that not all uncertainties are equal, and somethings might be impossible, some highly improbably, some likely, and so on. A collection of such uncertainties about everything around us in what forms the scientist’s “view”, as you put it. Such a view is arguably the best you can have, but that doesn’t imply its alway right.

      Scientists are often wrong – there are an infinity of ideas floating around, its our job to throw the wrong ones out! It is this process that drives science and our understanding of nature.

    • Photo: Clare Burrage

      Clare Burrage answered on 17 Mar 2012:


      I don’t think that’s true, scientists are always very skeptical especially when there is no evidence to support an idea. In fact in science you can never prove that something is true, or correct (although you can prove things are wrong) all you can ever say is that this is the best explantion we have at the moment for what we see.

    • Photo: Elizabeth Pearson

      Elizabeth Pearson answered on 19 Mar 2012:


      Scientists who do that are bad scientists. You always need to back up your views with evidence, even if you don’t have total proof and you need to be prepared that everything you think is true, even fundamental stuff like gravity, might be wrong if you find evidence for that.

Comments