Unsettled science is not unsound science

From Certainly Not! by Stuart Firestein.

Unsettled science is not unsound science. Scientists tend to emphasize disagreements because this is where the work remains to be done. Why talk about what we know, when all our effort should be directed at what we don’t know? The highly accomplished Marie Curie, in a letter to her brother, noted that “one never thinks about what has been done, only what remains to be done.” Problems don’t get solved by sitting around and nodding in agreement. They are solved, indeed they are understood to be problems in the first place, by talking about them.

Today, the public wants more of a say in science than ever before, which is understandable, since science affects so much of our lives. Climate change, genetically modified food, nuclear energy, rapid spread of infectious diseases, and a host of never-before-seen possibilities—both good and bad—have been illuminated by science.

But short of becoming an expert in each of many disparate fields, unlikely for even the cleverest among us, how can we participate? Well, we can be more like scientists in one crucial area: the acceptance of uncertainty. Indeed, it is the too-well-crafted explanation, the one that explains everything, that should set off red flags, warning us that we are likely being deceived, misled, or outright duped.