Is Science Just a New Religion?

Are we doing ourselves a disservice when we speak about our "belief" in evolution? Should we find a new way to talk about the "theories" that underlie our ideas? What about when we talk about the "design" of human anatomy? Why are we always finding ourselves on the defensive? Doesn't all of the natural evidence that the universe has to offer support the conclusions that scientists have drawn (and modified) over the past five centuries? I've had religious friends confront me about my passion for neuroscience, noting that my excitement often sounds suspiciously like religious fervor. And, very matter-of-factly, I must explain that there are two enormous differences between science and religion: doubt and faith.

Science is riddled with doubt, and religion is completely founded on faith. Rely on faith, and the scientific method falls apart. Insert doubt, and religious certainty quickly dwindles. Something tells me that the fundamentalist religious folks who want to add "creation-science" to state mandated science curricula don't really understand what the hell the word science actually means. Because let's face it, once intelligent design squeezes its way into the pages following evolution in our biology books, we might as well add astrology to our astrophysics lectures and toss some alchemy education into the chemistry lab.

So, what is science? Well, according to skeptic Michael Shermer, science is "a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed or inferred phenomena, past or present, aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation."

It is important to note that by definition, science is modifiable and falsifiable. This is what the scientific method depends upon. Every young scientist begins their education with a review of Thomas Kuhn's "paradigm shift," the idea that consensus among scientists periodically undergoes major changes when enough evidence is gathered to overthrow an existing view. This simply does not happen with religious dogma. The scientific paradigm shift is altogether antithetical to the concept of faith. That's why we scientists no longer talk about the ether or ectoplasm. Meanwhile, the majority of religious Americans prescribe to a belief system that originated prior to the Middle Ages, when bloodletting and exorcism were typical treatments for disease.

What is religion? It appears as though the answer is a resounding, "Hmmm, it's hard to say." Religious scholars and historians often disagree on a comprehensive definition of the term. Seemingly, religion is made up of some combination of belief in one or more deities, sacred, or supernatural beings, a faith-based worldview, worship, and ritual. Some people say that through religion, we human beings find a place in the universe, along with a purpose.

But does science not seek answers to the big questions, like why we are here and where we are going, without resorting to the supernatural? Nearly 86% of Americans consider themselves to be religious, and close to half of the people in this country think that evolution is baloney, voluntarily checking the box next to, "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." Such individuals choose to ignore mountains of rational, objective evidence so that they can take biblical parables as literal fact. This is not only an insult to the intelligence of the human species, but also to modern religion.

Science and religion do not have to be mutually exclusive, but science and creationism definitely are. Science is the study of the natural world. When individuals start quibbling about the supernatural, science goes out the window.

Almost all strict, academic scientists (myself included) would agree that if tomorrow, an experiment were devised that provided clear, repeatable evidence supporting divine intervention, our paradigm would need to be overhauled dramatically. What if tomorrow, fervent, fundamentalist Christians, for example, were provided evidence that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, or that hominids evolved from an earlier ape-like ancestor, or that...wait....

 

Comments

[RayArmyVetRetiredAF]

Let’s do a thought experiment, and in this experiment let’s assume that a Creationist or an Intelligent Design proponent is going to teach creationism or ID as a science. Let’s also put this stipulation in – the person teaching us creationism or ID must teach it starting immediately beyond the point where it’s a litany of attacks on the errors in evolutionary biology, or pointing out where you think life has been ‘designed.’ No falling back on evolution to fill stretch out the minutes, hours, weeks, months of your lecture. Skip that, teach us all the ‘science of creationism!’ I want to hear some real hard-core science, not stale anti-evolution rhetoric, which I’m familiar with. BTW, I am one of the 5% of scientifically literate Americans, so don’t worry about keeping it simple. It’s your turn in the spotlight; teach me some hard-core stuff!!! Okay, what are we going to learn? What great science are you going to pass down? What breathtaking new things about biology are you going to teach me? I’m sure you’re prepared to provide solid answers to any questions I must have. With over 2,000 years to learn your subject (no, not you personally :o), I expect you can go on for months, probably years teaching profound insights into not only biology, but geology, astronomy, physics, cosmology, but let’s stick just to good old creation biology… just give me time to get some popcorn, THIS OUGHT TO BE GOOD!!! :o)

[whiskeytangofoxtrot451]

Saying you don't believe in evolution is like saying you don't believe in the sun. It's still going to keep shining no matter what you think about it.

[Weirdo]

The world can be understood as the result of muddle and accident. If it were the result of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a more plausible and less painful hypothesis­.---Bertra­nd Russell.

[Weirdo]

Science is not faith. While scientific knowledge often begins with a guess, an educated one known as a hypothesis, the guess is tested against the real world. Over time hypotheses are confirmed or disconfirmed and bodies of knowledge are created. That's why we trust surgeons cut our bodies open and fix them. We know that they're not relying on faith, but rather on painstakingly accumulated knowledge of the way our bodies actually work.

It's interesting to think about why people would want to say science is just another system of belief that people have faith in. Supposedly they want to take science down a notch, which says more about their esteem of faith than it does about science. Also, I suppose people don't want to be bothered by pesky scientists who are always telling them that their ideas about the world are wrong. They'd rather keep believing whatever they want, without interference. So, they want to make science out to be just another religion, which can then be safely discarded in favor of their own. Unfortunately for these people, and fortunately for them as well when they sometimes need to consult such a thing as a doctor, science has been wildly successful in uncovering truths about the way the world works. You can't argue with success.

[krypton86]

I don't think I could have put it better. The relation between the public and science is just plain strange, schizophrenic even.

I recall a jarring experience I once had in a doctor's office. I was sitting in the waiting room and an older couple sitting across from me were quietly reading magazines (don't remember what they were). All of a sudden, the man piped up and started to carp on "those d@mn eggheads" talking about their "crazy evolution garbage," and yet there he was, waiting to see a doctor whose discipline depends heavily on the findings of evolutionary theory.

People are truly bizarre.

[willowranch]

Our science education in this country particularly through high school is very deficient. I think that is part of the problem. There is also a very strong anti-intellectual current in the country fostered in part by ultraconservative religion. There is also very little good science journalism for the average reader--one exception being the Tuesday New York Times Science section and the magazine Science Illustrated. I also think scientists need to build better bridges to the humanities--some good examples in this regard include Loren Eiseley, Chet Raymo and Terry Tempest Williams. And finally I sometimes think that scientists themselves appear very condescending to average people.

[Cara L. Santa Maria - Huffpost Blogger]

I am so excited about the comments that were sparked by my blog! I plan to respond to many specific comments soon. This was my first blog on HuffPo, and I want to thank everyone who read it and took the time to engage in the discussion.

[IaHawkeye]

You seem to be making a case for a new language of science to emphasize scientific realism, as opposed to a postmodern organization of science that is influenced more by social factors (like religion, atheism, or other social or political bias) and less by objective scientic pursuit. It strikes me that certain folks take a delight in a kind of intellectual hazing toward those who argue for an intelligent design. The typical argument centers around testability, falsfiability, etc., required characteristics of a scientific theory, a theoretical future potential for those qualifications not considered. Organizational concepts of science notwithstanding, I suspect that one can at once believe evidence for natural selection is true but still believe in intelligent design. Certainly not all who might believe in ID are New Age Creationists. Perhaps there could be something to Behe's idea of "irreducible complexity", notwithstanding the refutations of his proposed examples, with further inquiry at a molecular level. This does not necessarily require one deny that natural selection occurs at some point later. In any event it is an interesting debate from a philosophical point of view. Do you find it curious that many who express disdain for a theory of intelligent design purely on scientific merits, will simultaneously consider the theory of anthropogenic global warming as as close to scientific truth as germ theory? Does this not require a "faith" in a theory necessarily dependent on complex nonlinear mathematical models and assumptions yet to be verified?

[OzMoses]

Science does not dictate that you doubt for doubt's sake! It is not scientific at all to say that irreducible complexity (on which ID proponents have staked a lot) has been refuted in this case, but it must exist somewhere. Why? Is there really any reason to think so?
Being willing to change the "paradigm" in light of new evidence is not the same as living with the withering certainty that you're wrong.

[MarionWatts]

Thank YOU for a sound article and a very good one for a first blog. I see that you formerly taught high school students, as I did, many years ago, albeit not a scientific subject, but more along the liberal arts' venue (foreign language). I always strove to emphasize the utility of being able to communicate in a language not one's own in the native sense. I wanted to make the language living and not an incomprehensible system of conjugating verbs. Even in this, I strove to get my students to think critically - and this is an art, I believe, has fallen by the wayside in schools today, on both sides of the Atlantic.

I well remember one day years ago, when I was in a sophomore biology class. The teacher, a Darwinist, set aside one whole class period in order to debate, actually debate and discuss, this theory against that of a student, who strictly believed in Creationism. The irony there was that the student was, apart from this belief, one of the most intelligent students in the high school. The 'debate' was very civil and very respectful. In the end, both combatants agreed to disagree, but the Creationist student was in the minority there. I'm old enough and Southern enough to remember when the State tried to inculcate religion (specifcally the Protestant, Christian variety) into the curriculum; but when the Supreme Court ruled otherwise, that was stopped. Thank you.

http://emiliawahoo76.blogspot.com
http://myspace.com/virginiadem

[DocManhattan]

Thank you, Cara! There are times when I feel like beating my head against the wall as this false science-religion debate goes on. There should be no debate at all!

I guess I was lucky in that scientific method and thinking were explained to me pretty clearly at school (in England) when I was about nine or ten years old. Do people not learn this stuff any more? It should be as basic a foundation of education as arithmetic.

[krypton86]

Sadly, many people don't learn this stuff in public schools here in America. I did, but it wasn't taught very well at all (lots of memorization, very little explanation, zero imagination). For instance, when I first took an actual "science" class in seventh grade the person teaching it had no formal training in the sciences beyond a course or two in college. I suppose that's the norm for someone with an education degree (not sure about that), but it's not a good way to pass on scientific information to children. I can't imagine having to teach English to kids having majored in physics at university, and yet having Gym teachers fake their way through a first course in general science is not at all unheard of in the U.S.

Why in the world don't we run public schools in a similar way to our universities? I don't have a good answer for that, but I imagine that it has everything to do with money.

[MarionWatts]

I actually DID learn this 'stuff' in a public high school in Virginia in the early 70s, excellently taught by a very secular and very open-minded biology teacher. I learned my US government, with heavy emphasis on separation of church from state, equally by another CONSERVATIVE ex-military officer, who was also of the secular bent.

When I was in high school in the 70s, part of the curriculum, especially for those intending on furthering their education at university, was 'critical thinking' - in all areas. Somewhere along the line, interlaced with heavy pressure from successive conservative governments enhanced by the religious right, a lot of that critical thinking/deductive reasoning got wiped.

http://emiliawahoo76.blogspot.com
http://myspace.com/virginiadem

[BelieverMP]

I love science and I am a Christian. I believe that God was the greatest scientist and our study of science helps us to understand His creation. God is absolute truth. Science is our attempt to understand His truth in the physical world. Religion is our attempt to understand His truth in the spiritual world.

Here is an example of some scientific thought that could shed some light on why we think the earth may be older than it actually is . . .

"A critical assumption used in carbon-14 dating has to do with the ratio between two different varieties of carbon. It is assumed that the ratio of 14C to 12C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today (1 to 1 trillion). If this assumption is true, then the AMS 14C dating method is valid up to about 80,000 years. Beyond this number, the instruments scientists use would not be able to detect enough remaining 14C to be useful in age estimates. This is a critical assumption in the dating process. If this assumption is not true, then the method will give incorrect dates. What could cause this ratio to change?" Read more at http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible

[Inghram]

Yes and after thoroughly investigating the AIG link, please be sure to check out this example of scientific that could shed some light on why we think the earth may be rounder than it actually is:

http://theflatearthsociety.org

[StThomas]

C-14 is a tiny part of dating try here
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html#isoprobs

[ancientmarinader]

C14 isnt really useful beyond 100k years ago or so so it has very little to do with the deep geological time needed for evolution. It's used more for human archeology, not paleontology. There are dozens of other radiometric techniques that have nothing to do with c-14 and they go back much further.

What's interesting is that all of those techniques nicely conform with each other and with the non-radioametric techniques. What's especially lnteresting is that elements with half lives below a certain level are missing from the earth's crust (if they dont have a current source to renew them). That's additional evidence that the earth has been around long enough for those to radiate away. All of these bits and pieces confirm that things are very old.

[whiskeytangofoxtrot451]

As is often the case with AIG articles, this one starts with a false premise and then procedes to knock down it's own strawman. C-14 is not used for ages greater than 100,000 years ago. For ages greater than that, other methods like Potassium-argon dating are used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-argon_dating

This is the problem with trying to debate with many creationists. Many are so unaware of how little they actually know about the scientific method and the various techniques and tools used by scientists, that they think they know far more then they actually do. It's like trying to discuss Descartes with a chimpanzee. They poor creature doesn't even know how much it doesn't know.

But it's always amusing to be to see how someone with virtually know scientific background reads a few articles then thinks they've stumbled upon a flaw in reasoning that none of the thousands of scientists who have been studying these questions for the last 200 years have thought of.

[willowranch]

To understand evolution, one has to have at least a nodding familiarity with a number of basic sciences: radiometrics, systematics, comparative anatomy, sedimentary geology, genetics, cell biology, historical geology, etc. It is unrealistic to expect some of the folks with a very limited understanding of science to embrace evolution. This does not excuse their ignorance. There are some admirable attempts to educate the general public. This summer I visited the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (Oregon). In the visitor center, anyone could watch the scientists working in the lab and even go in and talk to them. The displays were fantastic including huge murals, interpretive displays and of course the fossils all laid out in timelines. It was really quite remarkable.

[OceanSize]

Science is defined partly by the ability to prove theories. This is done by taking principles observed in the natural world and applying them to a focused experiment and getting an identical result as you did in the natural world each and every single time. This is also why social sciences like Psychology cannot be considered "true" Science with a capital 'S'. Their theories can never be truly proven or disproven because the results cannot be consistently repeated.

Religion can not be proven or disproven. You cannot conduct experiments that produce any consistent tangible conclusion.

I should also point out that although I disagree with Creationism, I do not believe it is mutually exclusive from science. If there is a God, why couldn't he/she/it have created evolution? Isn't that more or less what Deists believe? That God merely created the building blocks and put things in motion, but everything since creation is random. Almost like God's experiment. (Most of our founding fathers were not Christians, but Deists)

Just because we don't know everything yet doesn't mean science was made up to either make us feel better or keep in line, which is the purpose of religion. Stupid question, author, move on. Of course science is not a new religion. You might as well have penned an article called "Are cats the new dogs?"

[DocManhattan]

You say "religion cannot be proven or disproven" ... but elements of religious dogma can be. You can't prove or disprove that an immaterial God exists, but you can sure as hell prove that the Earth is more than 10,000 years old. I don't think you'd disagree with me on that point ...

The fact is that as time has gone by and science has helped us understand our surroundings better, religion has had to give way over and over again. If people want to hold on to belief in the immaterial then that's fine -- spirituality is very appealing in a lot of ways and brings out a lot of good in humanity. But to insist on a belief in something that is demonstrably false (creationism, that the world is flat, that the sun orbits the Earth) is irrational and demeaning to human intelligence.

My Catholic mother was adamant that man should never have gone to the moon - she said that if God had meant us to fly, He would've given us wings. My response was always that if God hadn't meant us to think, He wouldn't have given us brains. (Or, indeed, curiosity.)

[ancientmarinader]

Creationism is usually associated with a specific dogma that is very much opposed to science. If you mean the idea of a creator in general, then that's not creationism as the term is generally used.

Creationism as in Scientific Creationism or the Intelligent Design folks have no scientific theory of any kind. They simply say that evolution is wrong. They don't provide a falsifiable, testable scientific theory of their own. So it is not science by default.

[willowranch]

"How can we know that there is any "beyond" or even define it? No, this "something beyond" is nothing more than your imagination running wild,"

I think you are a bit hasty there in disparaging imagination. A number of scientific discoveries begin in imagination for instance Kekule"s daydream about a snake eating its own tail leading to the elucidation of the benzene ring or Einstein's imaging what it would be like to ride a beam of light. A case could be made that most inventions begin in imagination. Art which is based in imagination often anticipates the findings of science -- see the book Art and Physics. Without imagination or curiosity there wouldn't be any science.

[beerent]

You are correctly making the connection between the creative side of man and religion.

That's why I am no fan of people like Dawkins who claims that religion can and should be eliminated from human endeavors – to make people stop dreaming would make them less than human, not more.
It's pretty obvious how wrong it is to blame religion for all that is wrong with us.

It's the same desire to know the unknowable that leads some to search for nirvana while others dream about what was there before the big bang, while still others seek a meaningful intuitive expression of their deepest feelings through artistic expression.

[willowranch]

Well stated beerent. Thanks for the observations.

[arlandbaee]

To assume that creativity and imagination is a product of religion is inane. The fact that many scientists are atheists, only 6% of scientists are republicans and many of the main scientific discoveries were made by people who found the religious explanations incomplete, insufficient or erroneous. The expansion of art in europe occurred when people stopped being restrained by the church's restrictions on what is appropriate and what is not. I believe religion keeps us from reaching our full human potential in all areas of life. Doubt itself is what makes people imagine alternatives. It is the one thing which inspires people to do the impossible.

[pons1595]

No, "all that is wrong with us," just "most."

[ancientmarinader]

Starting with imagination and wallowing in imagination are two entirely different things.

Walter Mitty and Einstein were both imaginative. Only one was a scientist.

[Weirdo]

Well said.

[krypton86]

Nice. Also, fanned.

[willowranch]

I am not sure what "wallowing" in imagination means. As for your examples, I think everyone is imaginative to a greater or lesser degree. I suppose it is possible to be excessively imaginative just like it is possible to not have enough curiosity.

[Lon]

This column gets a lot right, but it also gets a few things wrong.

The description of Kuhnian paradigm shift is inaccurate. Maybe this was just meant to be a simplification, but it's one that is misleading. According to Kuhn we do not get paradigm shifts when a new theory develops a preponderance of evidence that allows it to overthrow an old one. Rather we enter periods of crisis when our current paradigm seems not to be working for some reason (and the reasons can be complex). At that point scientists begin looking for a new paradigm which has the promise to replace the old. In the absence of a crisis one is not going to see a paradigm shift. One reason is that it is not practical to build the kind of support for an alternative theory simply because basic paradigms have so much support.

The problem with this simplification is that it makes science look more open to paradigm shifts than it actually is. And it lets anti-scientific critics argue that this or that theory is not scientific because it does not meet this false version of paradigm shift.

Religion also evolves more, and allows more for doubt, than is suggested here. The article takes the most extreme stance on such issues as the defining stance, which is not a good technique. Certainly there are differences between science and religion, but they should not be illustrated by creating simplistic pictures of the two sides.

[bobdcat]

The universe doesn't care what we believe. However, it will reveal its secrets if we will only observe. Science is the assembly and correlation of those observations. Religion is something else.

[daniel t]

I think what the author fails to notice is that for many people science is a faith. Complete with trust in authority figures and acceptance of propositions without evidence.

When Ken Miller talks about chromosome 2 in humans being a fusion of two different chromosomes, I don't buy an electron microscope and start sequencing the DNA myself. I accept his proposition on faith, i.e., without evidence.

[Oldsop]

agreed

[WellTickleMeWillie]

Science does not require YOU to be the verifier of its theories, although you may if you are truly qualified. But there are many other qualified scientists doing the verification of scientific facts and theories. So in effect, we do not accept these on faith but on the validation by many other qualified and often independent scientists. Faith is not involved, The scientific method is well founded on experimentation and verification of its facts, data, and theories. If you cannot tell the difference between this and faith, you certainly are not qualified as a rational thinker.

[CollinJE]

But evidence is available, that is a big difference.

If people choose to believe without consulting the evidence then it is wrong to do so. Authority is not a correct reason to believe anything.

[willowranch]

"Authority is not a correct reason to believe anything."

Really? Why is it then that in the scientific peer review process so much emphasis is placed on the credentials of the scientist presenting his/her findings? Isn't this an appeal to authority? I doubt if anything I wrote about particle physics would make it past the in box.

[onwisconsin]

Really? I only accept it when these ideas have been thoroughly peer reviewed.

Maybe that's faith to you -- but it's faith in a process that I am a part of in academia and I trust.

I don't have the time or resources to make every discovery myself. I stand on the shoulders of others to further my own research in my field. That's part of being an academic and a good researcher. Breakthroughs come rarely but when they can be replicated, studied, and understood, they add to the knowledge base for all of us.

I don't call that faith. I call that accumating knowledge.

[Andre Lieven]

Wrong. Intelligent people accept the peer reviewed findings of science for a very good REASON. It's been checked, by other people who are qualified in the field in question, and the hypothesis passed the tests.
People who try to connect the words "faith" and "science" simply fail to understand EITHER word.
Oh, people also trust that things fall down due to evidence, not "faith"... Sheesh.

[Oldsop]

I take issue with several logic defects in the author’s arguments:

She states - “the majority of religious Americans prescribe to a belief system that originated prior to the Middle Ages, when bloodletting and exorcism were typical treatments for disease.”

This is a guilt-by-a­ssociation tactic. It is not correct and provides no causative information. In fact it defames science itself.

The second statement is as follows – “…choose to ignore mountains of rational, objective evidence so that they can take biblical parables as literal fact. “

This is a paradigm issue which the author alludes to by mentioning the German philosopher Herr Kuhn. In other words if you believe in evolution then you will interpret the evidence in our world through that paradigm. If you believe in intelligent design then you will view the evidence in our world through that paradigm. Neither is ignoring “mountains of evidence”: they are just interpreting it through their belief systems or paradigm.

This is another issue like abortion that has no solution. Both sides will not change. There are no winners. There is no compromising.

Lastly both religion and science share two concepts in common: faith and doubt. If she cannot see this then perhaps her frame of reference is preventing it.

[Indon]

Young-earth creationism is not a legitimate paradigm. In fact, it lacks even basic self-consistency.

Of course, only science is expected to be self-consistent - yet another fundamental distinction between it and religion.

[Oldsop]

Your attack of another paradigm betrays your self interest in preserving your adopted paradigm. Herr Kuhn and Popper warned us about this in their writings.

I suggest you reconsider your logic; or in the phrase of a common expression – “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” In other words you cannot claim that science is adaptable and changeable and consistent.

[WellTickleMeWillie]

I whole heartedly support the scientific method. What I find difficult to accept from any religion is the thesis that there is a diety who has been instrumental in the creation of the universe. And when I ask "then who created that diety." the popular answer from the religious is "they always existed" to which my reply is "but there is another equally valid explanation and that is there is no diety b/c it is possible that life has always existed in the universe and is constantly undergoing transformation and change." Since both the universe and life have always existed, one does not have to create a diety to explain it. That places doubt on the religious explanation and often stops them in their tracks.

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

When the SETI@home project kicked off in 1999 or 2000, my brief survey of the thousands of user statements established the two biggest reasons for participating were (1) to prove the existence of God (2) to disprove the existence of God.

If a signal from a distant blue dot would change absolutely nothing about the way anyone thinks, then no amount of evidence can ever change the American mind.

[texasteph12570]

well stated. as a christian conservative i try to keep an open mind to science as it pertains to my faith and i find that the left has made science its own religion adhereing to it blindly even though in time many of its ideas have been replaced by newer and shinier theory.

everyone should examine their belief system and weigh the options as some set in concrete opinions may in time prove to be a misinterpretation of data.

[CollinJE]

Agreed, and the scientific method takes into account the fact that any given hypothesis can be changed based on new evidence. Science is open to change, welcomes it, and even seeks it consistently. Look at evolutionary theory, it is continuously questioned and tested, probably more than any other scientific theory, and as such it as adapted and changed which is a process that allows the theory to get better.

This is a characteristic of science that religion does not share.

Now on people "adhering" to science blindly I'm not really sure what that means. But I'll give three fallacies for believing anything: tradition, authority, and revelation (credit to Dawkins on this).

If you find yourself believing anything because of these three things then, in my opinion, you don't have a correct foundation for that belief.

Where believing based on authority in science is different is that the data and methods any given person used can be examined by the person them self, and to truly have the correct foundation of belief one needs to examine the actual evidence. Religious belief again also does not share this quality.

[Weirdo]

Indeed, and that's why science doesn't deal in certitude. Scientists are open to new evidence and understand that their knowledge isn't complete. That's the point of continuing to do science in the first place.