Scientific Uncertainty

Are scientists ever really sure of anything?

Pictured: Science? Who knows Source: Pexels

Science is a wonderful system of knowledge, discovery, and invention. It’s brought us things like not dying before age five, heart transplants, and those little plastic fish we keep soy sauce in before it goes on sushi.

Pictured: Science. Delicious, delicious science Source: Pexels

And as a society, we put science on an enormous pedestal. It can be wild and outlandish, it can be strange and unusual, but if scientists have investigated the question and found it to be true then it’s suddenly a fact. We give a credence to the journey of scientific discovery that we don’t give to any other system of thought, because science deals in facts. It relates directly to truth.

But if that’s true, why are scientists never sure of anything?

Let’s talk a little bit about scientific uncertainty.

History of Science

We like to think of science as a monolith that has always existed, but the reality is that much of what we now think of as scientific was developed only a few centuries ago. The ubiquitous white lab coat, for example, only came into being in the 1800s.