The Search for Truth

(I have to preface this by saying that I wrote this entry before reading Kate's.  It's funny the symmetry.)

Today Kate and I watched "Six Degrees Could Change the World", a National Geographic documentary on climate change.  I'd recommend everyone watch it.  It's no "Inconvenient Truth", but it turns a pretty unflinching eye on what is probably the most pressing issue facing humanity.  And it got me thinking.

Scientists are the most important segment of today's society, having the most to offer mankind.  This isn't anything new.  They've always been there to push humanity forward.  What makes them distinct is their unbridled enthusiasm for truth.  Or more specifically, the search for truth.  Even if the truth is uncomfortable.  Even if it's the last thing we want to hear, the truth of things has to faced head-on for any progress to be made, and scientists, and the scientific method are most adept at finding it.

Scientists are never satisfied.  They constantly reexamine and critique humanity's entire body of knowledge.  Even well-accepted and well-supported theories are combed through for small nits and bugs.  It's a constant process of refinement.  There's an understanding that no theory or law is more important than the truth, and if, in reexamining a particular belief, flaws are found, scientists are quick to regroup and reevaluate.  They never, never believe something simply because someone told them it was true.  That is a founding principle of the scientific method.  You do not pre-suppose a truth and then fight to make the world fit.  You honestly examine the world as it is and slowly, over time, sculpt theories that reveal the truth that was always there.  It's truth because of the facts, not truth in the face of facts.

I have great admiration for that sort of thinking.  The data doesn't lie.  Gather enough information about a particular system, and the truth of that system floats to the surface.  Then keep looking.  Gather more data.  Ask deeper questions.  Look at interrelated systems.  Examine how everything interacts with everything else.  You may never get to an ultimate truth, but along the way you'll reveal a lot of smaller but equally important truths.

Just keep your eyes open, keep questioning, and never let an answer be, "because I told you so."