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Scientific self-correction could use fine-turning |
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Written by Don Satraps
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Saturday, March 13 2010, 9:51 PM |
I read with interest Rob Sutherland’s Public Professor article about scientific self-correction with regard to the supposed connection between vaccination and autism. Truly this is a good news story.
Within the physical sciences there is a strong history of self-correction. Certainly, anyone who follows research into cosmology, as an example, sees this on an almost annual basis these days.
However, this self-correcting mechanism is much less evident when it comes to scientific investigation in the more interpretive disciplines.
Archeology and anthropology, as examples, have a much more difficult time of it.
In 2008 for example, a researcher from the University of Arizona, who found a 4,000-year-old gold necklace at the shore of Lake Titicaca, said that the discovery was “a complete shock” and that “it was not expected in the least,” according to an April 2008 CBS news article.
My reaction when I heard of it, however, was far less of shock and much more of “yeah, I’ve been expecting that for some time.”
Long before this discovery, some researchers indicated that evidence would be found showing that there has, in fact, been advanced human development in that region of the world far longer than traditional theories suggest.
However, when these researchers presented evidence and their theories in the past, they were frequently laughed out of the room and labelled crackpots and pseudo scientists.
Even in the article where this information was presented, there was no reference to previous research that such artifacts might be found here. Rather, it was essentially labelled an anomaly, and that’s that.
The problem is that there are now rooms full of similar anomalies in various research institutions which collect dust because their contents do not fit within established theory. Thus, they are largely ignored.
This is not necessarily the result of malicious or deceptive persons trying to hide these things.
Clearly, the fact that the above necklace was brought to light is evidence to the contrary.
However, the treatment of the necklace in this instance, and the treatment of other evidence in similar circumstances, in my view, says that the scientific process of “self-correction,” in certain disciplines at least, needs a bit of fine tuning.
Tutela Occulte.
Don Satraps
Lethbridge
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