The Culture of Science

In many ways, science has its own culture separate from other subjects of academia. This is especially true in the area of disagreements. Disagreements are abundant in areas history, anthropology, political science, law, and elsewhere. Science, however, is seen by everyone outside the profession to be constant and universally agreed upon. That could not be further from the truth.

In the 1920's through the 1940's Albert Einstein worked on an idea that was contrary to the popularly held ideas. Most scientist at the time agreed that there was some substance in the universe (an ether) that light traveled through. Light was seen as a wave and waves worked by disturbing a material and moving as the energy was transferred, much like a wave travels through water. Einstein saw a problem. There was no material in space. Space, by definition, was empty, so how did light travel?

His theory sounded absurd to almost everyone listening. He was ridiculed, and shunned but a few others saw what he did. They began teaching this to their students and researching the possibilities on their own. As time passed, more and more people began to agree. As those students became professors and the "Old Men" died off or became obsolete, the idea began to take hold in the scientific community. This is how science changes. Not by leaps and bounds to experimentation but by the slow influx of new ideas and the slow ousting of those to hold onto the old ways.

This has happened throughout history with people like Capernicus, Galileo, Newton, and many others. One modern example is evolution. No matter your religious stance, science sees things its own way, and it is often a "my way or the highway" approach. The modern theory of evolution, an extrapolation of the general theory first proposed by Charles Darwin, is thought by many scientists to be lacking. Their most powerful argument is that the statistics make it impossible. There is a point in statistical mathematics where something is so statistically improbable that in the real universe it is believed to be impossible. Like when I asked Tiffany out in high school and she said I had a "snowball's chance." Mathematically speaking, there must be some small chance that a snowball could survive given the right conditions but we all know, I was not going to be taking her out on a date, ever.

There are many scientists that believe in the current theory of evolution with and almost religious fervor but many of the younger generation can see that the evidence to the contrary is impressive. It is possible, if function follows form, that as the younger scientists gain more acclaim and move into more powerful positions, this idea could eventually be ousted for a more conservative one. If it does, they will be following the format that science has used since the beginning of the scientific method (scientific method, bah!).