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"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence." Bertrand Russell, in "Roads to Freedom" What is the purpose of science? To sum up as briefly as possible, it is an attempt to explain. This can apply to anything from why bricks fall when we drop them, why the sun rises every morning, why your thoat hurts, why more men get into car accidents than women, why a smile means the same thing in every culture throughout the world or why countries declare war. To explain something sounds simple enough, but there is a lot that can go wrong before that explanation is reached. Before we confidently state that we have the answer, we must be sure that our results are reliable and valid. Scientists test reliability by repitition. Do different observers agree? When another tester, independent of the first, repeats an experiment, do they achieve the same results? Although we look for patterns, we can never be sure that this pattern will persist in every situation. For instance, if I ask 100 randomly selected people to throw a randomly selected brick through a randomly selected window, we will most likely find that when someone throws a brick at a window, it will always break the window. Repeated study after repeated study is most likely to have the same result but this does not rule out the possibility that somebody could have horrible aim or they’re throwing at a bullet proof window.
Approximate Word count = 1093
Approximate Pages = 4.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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