The discovery of a new Covid variant led to arguments. Could the discovery of 'Deltakron' (click) be the result of a laboratory contamination? According to the scientist from Cyprus who discovered this 'mix' of the Delta variant and Omikron the strain he discovered is the result of the virus' evolution. But not all of his colleagues are convinced. In short: they don't really know. That's right: real scientists are almost never sure of themselves. If they are, you can bet on it that they don't know that science itself evolves and never ever can a single person be absolutely right. That means scientists who claim they are absolutely sure should not call themselves 'scientists' but 'smug'.
Scientists are people. Who knew?
The amount of data they process is so vast that they need computer programs to help them determine which piece of information is trustworthy, which is well-meant but wrong and which piece of data is simply false. But as humans they can - eeringly easily - be fooled. In this example (click) experts on cyber security were fooled by a 'scientific' piece created by...artificial intelligence. It shows that if you put enough convinving technical terms in a piece, it's easy to trick people into believing that piece is genuine. To know what I mean you only need to listen to speeches and debates from politicians: they actually practice on using catch phrases meant to appeal to their targeted audience. For instance - if they want to sound really scholared - they might say: 'It has come under my attention through personal visual observation'. Sounds like they really know what they're talking about, doesn't it? But all it really says is: 'I've seen it.'
Even the greatest of experts and scientists made and make mistakes. Well, Einstein and Darwin don't anymore. Because they're dead. But they did make some head scratching mistakes in their thinking. Charles Darwin (you know, that dude who deducted living creatures evolve and didn't magically appear or were shaped from clay brought to life by a favourite deity) was right on his theory of evolution. But he was wrong on his idea of the nature of heredity (click)
Albert Einstein once was convinced the universe was static and later admitted other scientists were right and it's actually expanding.
There are - of course - more examples. Point being: science is constantly moving and even when there's consensus amongst the scientific community, some facts stay firmly in place. Like that the Earth is not flat. It's also not perfectly round. But more shaped like a football that your mother-in-law sat on for an hour.
Recently scientists thought they had found evidence they succesfully 'quantum entangled' a tardigrade. A feat that was only once performed with simple particles, not with a living being. The resulting paper was immediately under heavy scrutiny and it looks like they were mistaken. Most likely pressured by subsidy givers who want quick results they probably didn't take enough time to check, check and doublecheck their research and have it thorougly peer reviewed. Although the research itself is promising.
Too bad Erwin Schödinger isn't around to join the discussion. His famous cat would have made minced meat from the tardigrade.
Too bad Erwin Schödinger isn't around to join the discussion. His famous cat would have made minced meat from the tardigrade.
Speaking of Schrödinger's Cat (click): it wasn't the famous scientist's way to make quantum physics understandable but more to make fun of the concept of an object being this or that. In his view any object could only exist in one state of being at any given time. If I understand the idea correctly that is. Because - just like scientists - I too am only human and thus not always correct in my assumptions.
In conclusion: scientists are people. Just like you and I. And even politicians.
In conclusion: scientists are people. Just like you and I. And even politicians.
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