The Indispensable Uncertainty: Science progressing in the direction of the un-known
Nowadays, many problems worldwide affect our reality. Science faces an issue of credibility loss and being non-veritable. Nevertheless, science is based on the best available data scientists do have.
Uncertainty leads the scence progressing to the un-known. Actually, that never causes harm to society, but helps its ability to evolve. And we should know how Indispensable it is so as to deal with it for the best of human kind. In order to remove people's fears of something we must share healthy true ideas with them.
The article gives glimpse about scientific uncertainty and its indispensable effects on society. It helps to enhance awareness of ordinary people about recent scientific advances to maintain the trust in science.
Uncertainty, in my own perspective particularly in the medical field, has not been identified in books directly. But, using conclusion we can assume that:
It is the state of temporary lack of knowledge about a certain topic or field followed by passionate desire to find out the true answers. Uncertainty is basically derived by human curiosity to discover, invent and explore new things. It is continuous and progressive.
However, let's think from another perspective. Some people think that uncertainty is dangerous because, in order to find answers, people (or scientists in particular) do sacrifise others. In other words, some people think that they are experimental mice designed to test new theories and that new ideas are yet not guaranteed.
That is totally wrong!!
People are not a toy to play with that's why I talked about the father of Evidence Based Medicine or EBM. He was a physician who built the experiments on the best available data before applying them on humans.
Uncertainty, my dear reader, is the door of creativity. You will never be able to discover and explore without being able to change and evolve. Change is comprehensive: thoughts, ideas, mindsets and so on. Nature around us is the teacher. But, as it does not have the ability to speak, we discover phenomena and sometimes fail to figure out the best explanations. Here, uncertainty is valuable because it allows you to look beyond and find another explanation to the same particular phenomenon based on more powerful evidence.
'' The Indispensable Uncertainty: Science progressing in the direction of Unknown
In 1903, John Dalton made his first steps towards the unknown. He formulated his Atomic Theory. Dalton proposed that material consisted of tiny particles referred to as atoms. They are solid and can not be split. But in 1932, the Atomic Theory was refined obviously. Scientists used mathematics to work out how the particles move and what they look like. In contrast to what Dalton assumed, they found that atoms are hollow with electrons spinning around in orbits!!
In the past, science was based on experiments more than researches. In 1953, a neurosurgeon named William Beecher Scoville operated on an Epileptic patient. He removed part of his hippocampus to relieve his seizures. He sucked out, by mistake, the surrounding medial temporal lobes, that lead to the discovery of memory centers of the brain. Seems scary right?
Thus, we conclude that in the world of science there is nothing taken for granted or known for sure. Scientific advances inform us about new outcomes daily. Hubble’s telescope and electron microscopy bring the beauty of science in handy. Evolution and progress never stop and it is significantly limitless. This leads to erroneous intuition that science is not veritable. Are scientists, especially in the medical field, losing their credibility?
Nevertheless, we discover that how science is largely based on the best available data that scientists and researchers have. In the medical field, we can find that these principles are called evidence-based medicine.
Archibald Leman Cochrane, a Scottish doctor, wrote about his theory of EBM in his book "Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services". He encourages the usage of randomized control trials to make medicine more effective and powerful.
Ben Feringa, the 2016 Nobel laureate in chemistry had a comment in the webinar "United by science" answering a question from a student about the spread of fake science nowadays. Feringa said: "Scientists have the duty to bring forward knowledge insights whatever the field of academia. All fields are totally based on scientific insights". He refused to agree that science is an "opinion" of one person.
Science is trustworthy because it comes out after dozens of researches and trials before it reaches us. Intuitions, fake judgments and misleading questions never comprise science.
Nowadays, a conspicuous debate considering the action of COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination and major adverse effects have led people's decision of refusing or avoiding to take the vaccine. However, scientists are dealing with COVID-19 most carefully and accurately.
At the identical time, no information can be 100% correct. Prof.Sir. Magdy Yacoub once said that what we know about the heart does not exceed 1% of unknown knowledge.
Vaccines are proved to be safe enough if they fulfill the criteria of patients ready for vaccination (not severe diabetes, rheumatoid patient, virally infected and so on). This leaves us with endless uncertainty about science that drives human curiosity and mental capabilities to evolve and progress for the best of humankind.
It is our responsibility to help educate society and to adjust our views of various aspects of knowledge.
References:
1. IGCSE chemistry book 2021
2. Article of National Geographic, November 2007 about memory.
3. Thinking fast and slow
4. "United by science" : webinar by Royal Swedish Academy of sciences.
5. Cochrane Library.''
I hope you have enjoyed reading this article that was already published in Medpulse magazine in collaboration with Students' Scientific Society (SSS).
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