« Ignorance, Failure and the Scientific Method: a Case Study from Research in the Mammalian Olfactory System »
The non specialist public generally believes that Science is governed by the Scientific Method and that it is an activity whose purpose is to generate Facts and truth (often with a capital T) about our universe; that it makes statements about the world that remain unchanged and certain. This is true even of university students and even of science majors in universities. It is not until graduate school that the working scientist learns that science is messy, not methodical, that questions are more important than answers and that failure is imbedded in the process. Words like ignorance, failure, uncertainty and doubt, while generally negative in popular parlance, are the very characteristics that make science so reliable and so successful. After convincing you of these "alternate truths", I will present some recent research and data in the olfactory system that may be seen as a case history of how evidence changes and how revision is a victory in science. It will also demonstrate that, in spite of this revisionistic process, unsettled science is not unsound science.