Question: In science, when a conspiracy cannot be disproved, is it ever necessary to just put it down to "it just is"? Do you belive that some things just cannot be explained?
If someone proposes something – what you’re referring to as a conspiracy – then you need to look at the evidence. Science is about believing your senses – your eyes, ears etc. You do things to the world and you get a response, and the response is repeatable, understandable. Things can be explained through experiment, and careful thought.
So someone says to you “There’s a dinosaur living on top of Uluru, and nobody ever sees it because it only comes out at night” you might think “Awesome, that’s cool” because the idea is nice. The idea that NOBODY ever saw this thing, but YOU know about it. That makes people want to believe stuff.
And sometimes that’s good. We need people in the world who are willing to take chances. To have ideas that are crazy and think – hey, I don’t care what people think, I’m going to do this thing.
But – and this is crucial – you must keep your connection to reality. At some point you’re going to have to calm down and say “OK, so if there’s a big dinosaur on Uluru, who’s seen it? Can I see it? Is the person who told me about it crazy, actually?” You need to assess things for yourself. To question your own mind and judge.
You will rarely have the satisfaction of complete certainty about anything. Life is about probabilities. I don’t KNOW that there’s not some dinosaur living on Uluru. You can never be SURE that there isn’t. But you have to think is it likely? If not, why don’t I think about something more likely?
Are there things that just can’t be explained? Not really. Science is not some mystical thing – it’s just a way of looking at the world through experiments, and everyone does that. You can examine almost everything. There will be some things that are really complex (like the brain) and some things that are really weird (like quantum mechanics). But no, science is about the world being understandable, interesting and rich. It’s way too interesting to need dinosaurs on Uluru. If someone tells you something that can’t be explained, they probably haven’t tried or they’re just making stuff up.
I think there are a lot of things, that at this point in time, with the technology available, we cannot explain. For example, lots of things about space. We can have theories about black holes, and how the Universe began, and whether there are other universes, but we can’t test them because we don’t have the tools to do so. It doesn’t mean that we stop trying to explain these things, or that we call them conspiracy theories (I assume you mean ‘conspiracy’ as an idea without much evidence which most people don’t believe. Something that’s a bit wacky). They are just a theory that is interesting to think about, and that we would like to know more about.
Back before we had powerful microscopes nobody knew what the inside of a cell looked like. It was too small and the technology was not advanced enough. So people might have guessed what was inside and what it looked like, but there was no way to prove they were correct. Now that we can look inside a cell, we can prove whether the idea was correct or not. I think that in time, things which are just theories now will be able to be studied and proved/disproved because we will develop better technology.
I’ve never heard a scientist say that something ‘just is’ the way it is. They are more likely to say “At this point, we believe that this is a possible explanation” as they like to have lots of good evidence before they believe an explanation. I think that, probably, everything that exists and everything which happens could be explained by science IF we understood everything well enough and had excellent technology to test our theories. So that’s a long way off. In the meantime, let’s call it a “possible explanation” and keep looking for evidence.
If someone has an idea or wants to know how something happened then we look at the evidence. It’s like solving a crime. We collect as much information as possible to work out what happened.
Just because an investigation doesn’t lead anywhere for us to make a conclusion, it doesn’t mean that the idea is true or false. If you watch enough Mythbusters, you’ll eventually come across something that they tested using science that the team can’t really decide whether the myth has been Busted or Confirmed and have a third option, Plausible – it could happen but only within certain limits.
Science is like that, (but we do a lot more testing than Mythbusters to make sure our results can be repeated not only by us but by any other scientist trying out the same experiment), but when something really can’t be solved, it comes down to two things:
1) We don’t have enough information.
2) We’re thinking about the situation in the wrong way and a different scientific approach is needed.
Everything we experience has a logical explanation behind it. Sometimes it takes longer at working out what that explanation is.
There are definitely some things we don’t have an explanation for. But I don’t think this means that an explanation doesn’t exist, I think it means we just haven’t found it yet.
When scientists are looking for an explanation for why something happens, they make predictions. A good scientist, if they are doing their job properly, should consider every possibility in their predictions. In fact, when a scientist is looking for an explanation, they don’t prove that an explanation is correct, they must work hard to disprove all but one of the possibilities. The remaining prediction is then considered the correct one.
But scientists are always cautious when saying they are right about something. Even if all the evidence in the world points to a single explanation, scientists still call it a theory (like the theory of evolution). There is still always the possibility, no matter how correct an explanation is, that some evidence will be discovered to disprove it. That’s the way science works
What do you mean by a conspiracy? Most conspiracies are things that could never be proven because the people believe that the facts have not been reported correctly. For example, the collapse of the World Trade Towers by terrorists crashing planes into the Towers.
The false argument goes like this: burning jet fuel does not melt jet engines, so burning jet fuel cannot get hot enough to melt the metal structures in the World Trade Towers. All the scientists and governments are deliberately covering up the truth.
So let us look at the science: jet engines are continually cooled by fresh cool air entering the engine. When jet fuel burns in a confined space without any cooling, it does get hot enough to melt metal. Just look at plane crashes and car fires and oil refinery fires. Those fuel fires do get hot enough to melt metal.
The people who believe in conspiracies then say well we KNOW that the true facts haven’t been reported.
So let us consider the nature of science. Science is about improving knowledge. Scientist have be OPEN to the possibility that their information and views were incorrect and to adjust the way they look at the world.
It is not science when someone says, “it doesn’t matter what proof you show me, I KNOW that there is a conspiracy covering up the truth. The ‘fact’ that you tell me there is no evidence for a conspiracy is proof that the conspiracy is covering up the conspiracy!” This is faith — believing in something in the absence of proof. It is not science.
If someone proposes something – what you’re referring to as a conspiracy – then you need to look at the evidence. Science is about believing your senses – your eyes, ears etc. You do things to the world and you get a response, and the response is repeatable, understandable. Things can be explained through experiment, and careful thought.
So someone says to you “There’s a dinosaur living on top of Uluru, and nobody ever sees it because it only comes out at night” you might think “Awesome, that’s cool” because the idea is nice. The idea that NOBODY ever saw this thing, but YOU know about it. That makes people want to believe stuff.
And sometimes that’s good. We need people in the world who are willing to take chances. To have ideas that are crazy and think – hey, I don’t care what people think, I’m going to do this thing.
But – and this is crucial – you must keep your connection to reality. At some point you’re going to have to calm down and say “OK, so if there’s a big dinosaur on Uluru, who’s seen it? Can I see it? Is the person who told me about it crazy, actually?” You need to assess things for yourself. To question your own mind and judge.
You will rarely have the satisfaction of complete certainty about anything. Life is about probabilities. I don’t KNOW that there’s not some dinosaur living on Uluru. You can never be SURE that there isn’t. But you have to think is it likely? If not, why don’t I think about something more likely?
Are there things that just can’t be explained? Not really. Science is not some mystical thing – it’s just a way of looking at the world through experiments, and everyone does that. You can examine almost everything. There will be some things that are really complex (like the brain) and some things that are really weird (like quantum mechanics). But no, science is about the world being understandable, interesting and rich. It’s way too interesting to need dinosaurs on Uluru. If someone tells you something that can’t be explained, they probably haven’t tried or they’re just making stuff up.
1
I think there are a lot of things, that at this point in time, with the technology available, we cannot explain. For example, lots of things about space. We can have theories about black holes, and how the Universe began, and whether there are other universes, but we can’t test them because we don’t have the tools to do so. It doesn’t mean that we stop trying to explain these things, or that we call them conspiracy theories (I assume you mean ‘conspiracy’ as an idea without much evidence which most people don’t believe. Something that’s a bit wacky). They are just a theory that is interesting to think about, and that we would like to know more about.
Back before we had powerful microscopes nobody knew what the inside of a cell looked like. It was too small and the technology was not advanced enough. So people might have guessed what was inside and what it looked like, but there was no way to prove they were correct. Now that we can look inside a cell, we can prove whether the idea was correct or not. I think that in time, things which are just theories now will be able to be studied and proved/disproved because we will develop better technology.
I’ve never heard a scientist say that something ‘just is’ the way it is. They are more likely to say “At this point, we believe that this is a possible explanation” as they like to have lots of good evidence before they believe an explanation. I think that, probably, everything that exists and everything which happens could be explained by science IF we understood everything well enough and had excellent technology to test our theories. So that’s a long way off. In the meantime, let’s call it a “possible explanation” and keep looking for evidence.
1
Nope. It’s just not how science works.
If someone has an idea or wants to know how something happened then we look at the evidence. It’s like solving a crime. We collect as much information as possible to work out what happened.
Just because an investigation doesn’t lead anywhere for us to make a conclusion, it doesn’t mean that the idea is true or false. If you watch enough Mythbusters, you’ll eventually come across something that they tested using science that the team can’t really decide whether the myth has been Busted or Confirmed and have a third option, Plausible – it could happen but only within certain limits.
Science is like that, (but we do a lot more testing than Mythbusters to make sure our results can be repeated not only by us but by any other scientist trying out the same experiment), but when something really can’t be solved, it comes down to two things:
1) We don’t have enough information.
2) We’re thinking about the situation in the wrong way and a different scientific approach is needed.
Everything we experience has a logical explanation behind it. Sometimes it takes longer at working out what that explanation is.
1
There are definitely some things we don’t have an explanation for. But I don’t think this means that an explanation doesn’t exist, I think it means we just haven’t found it yet.
When scientists are looking for an explanation for why something happens, they make predictions. A good scientist, if they are doing their job properly, should consider every possibility in their predictions. In fact, when a scientist is looking for an explanation, they don’t prove that an explanation is correct, they must work hard to disprove all but one of the possibilities. The remaining prediction is then considered the correct one.
But scientists are always cautious when saying they are right about something. Even if all the evidence in the world points to a single explanation, scientists still call it a theory (like the theory of evolution). There is still always the possibility, no matter how correct an explanation is, that some evidence will be discovered to disprove it. That’s the way science works
1
What do you mean by a conspiracy? Most conspiracies are things that could never be proven because the people believe that the facts have not been reported correctly. For example, the collapse of the World Trade Towers by terrorists crashing planes into the Towers.
The false argument goes like this: burning jet fuel does not melt jet engines, so burning jet fuel cannot get hot enough to melt the metal structures in the World Trade Towers. All the scientists and governments are deliberately covering up the truth.
So let us look at the science: jet engines are continually cooled by fresh cool air entering the engine. When jet fuel burns in a confined space without any cooling, it does get hot enough to melt metal. Just look at plane crashes and car fires and oil refinery fires. Those fuel fires do get hot enough to melt metal.
The people who believe in conspiracies then say well we KNOW that the true facts haven’t been reported.
So let us consider the nature of science. Science is about improving knowledge. Scientist have be OPEN to the possibility that their information and views were incorrect and to adjust the way they look at the world.
It is not science when someone says, “it doesn’t matter what proof you show me, I KNOW that there is a conspiracy covering up the truth. The ‘fact’ that you tell me there is no evidence for a conspiracy is proof that the conspiracy is covering up the conspiracy!” This is faith — believing in something in the absence of proof. It is not science.
1