If you know the difference between these three distinct things, good for you. If you confuse them, you are not alone. But I am surprised how many people mix them up or are even anti-science while enjoying the benefits of electricity, chemistry and biology.
In this short column I can give only examples, but I hope you can distinguish the truth from the lies when you hear them.
Science and non-science are both important domains of human culture, distinct but with a fuzzy boundary. If something can be measured objectively, not involving any subjective judgment, it can claim to be science. Galileo was a pioneer, measuring the speed of falling and rolling balls. Newton thought up his theory of gravity that explained the motion of balls, falling apples, the Moon and planets. A tiny discrepancy in Mercury’s orbit was later explained by Einstein’s more perfect theory (Relativity). If you are anti-science you should throw away your GPS, which depends on science.
Today physicists at nearby Fermilab are studying a tiny discrepancy in the magnetism of muons, particles like heavy electrons. The measured value is 2.0011659209 units and known particle physics with quantum theory gets 2.0011659180. Who cares? Physicists care. Perhaps something is missing in the calculations – maybe a new particle? Who knows where it will lead?
Good scientists must be humble, because they can be shown to be wrong, often are and accept it. That’s how science progresses. If a theory cannot be shown by measurements to be wrong, it’s probably not science. It may be “just a theory,” which is different!
Non-science covers all the important and wonderful things that cannot be measured. Art, music, emotions from love to hate. Brain functions may be measurable, but consciousness? I don’t think so. I may be wrong.
Nonsense – sounding like science, but untrue, is increasingly and dangerously prevalent. Social media and the internet make it easy to spread made-up stories. Climate change is not a hoax. Today another dangerous lie is that vaccines are bad. In the 1950s there were about 15,000 new cases of disfiguring polio every year in the USA, but vaccines eradicated it here by 1979. Smallpox was eradicated worldwide by vaccines by 1980. One day the world may be free of the COVID-19 virus, if scientists develop a safe vaccine. But if too many people refuse the vaccine, that virus or its mutations may be killing our great-grandchildren. It will not just disappear.
