Science Is the Best We Have

This made me laugh.

Climate deniers and anti-vaxxers claim, as suggested in this ad from the mid-20th Century, that science isn’t always correct.

True without a doubt. In fact, when you think about it, it’s almost always incorrect.  If we still have a civilization here in 100 years, almost none of what we currently believe about physics or medicine will be held as true. What we believed 500 years ago, in all scientific domains, has long since been completely replaced with our modern understanding.

People who rely on science are completely okay with this.  My mom asked me recently, if it’s almost always wrong, why do you make such a big deal of it in your writings?  It’s because it’s the best thing we have.

I don’t think we have accurate knowledge of the rate at which glaciers are melting, we don’t have a cure for cancer, and it’s clear we don’t have the vaguest notion of what dark energy and dark matter are composed of.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t develop our comprehension in these arenas.

Put another way, if we do, in fact, get answers to these questions and hundreds more like them, they most certainly won’t come from superstition or QAnon.