Most of you, the readers, have probably tuned in to the news at one point or
another to hear the anchor person begin a story with the phrase ‘‘Today scientists
reported,’’ probably followed by a description of something completely outside
of your everyday experience: colliding microscopic particles, genetic engineering,
or statements about the behavior of giant galaxies or the Big Bang. How do
scientists arrive at their conclusions on such topics? And perhaps more importantly,
why should you believe anything they say?
The answers are important, for the topics covered in this book are indeed such
things as the creation of the Universe, the violent death of massive stars, and so
forth, which you will (probably) never personally experience. So an understanding
of how science is done and why we trust the results is relevant to
what will follow. Equally important is realizing that scientific results always
represent a qualified ‘‘truth’’ (as opposed to an absolute truth). New discoveries
that change how science views the universe are always just around the corner.
The ‘‘scientific method’’ provides the recipe for generating a consistent set
of unprejudiced ideas about how the Universe works; it is also the method by
which the current ideas are replaced by new ones, based on observations of
the real world.
In addition, the scientific method has a practical aspect that cannot, and should
not, be neglected. Many aspects of our society have become increasingly intertwined
with a manifold of technological improvements that lengthen and enrich
life,1 and we have come to expect (and demand) that every new such improvement
will perform safely and reliably. To insure the safety and efficacy of these
products most countries have instituted mechanisms to test whether these
expectations are fulfilled and to insure that failing products are not distributed
among the public. We expect these tests to be unprejudiced, repeatable and
consistent, and so the standard approach in devising them must follow the
scientific method.