WASHINGTON — There is a lot of talk about "following the science" amid a COVID-19 pandemic that is impacting the world and keeping people socially distant, even as vaccines are rolled out to the public.
But what is Science, really? The word literally means “Knowledge.” derived from the Latin, “Scientia.”
Science emerged in ancient civilizations and discovery by discovery builds upon those foundations.
Science starts with curiosity and observation. What we call science today systematically seeks to discover and organize what we know about our universe.
One asks questions. This is where the scientific method begins. As we observe, a hypothesis is made to attempt to answer a question. A hypothesis is an educated guess about what one might expect the answer to be. From there, experiments test the hypothesis.
During experiments, one carefully controls independent variables, only changing them one at a time, in order to see their effect on dependent variables. Then you record observations and analyze the meaning of the data. When an experiment has repeatable results, understanding progresses.
A consensus of scientists does not guarantee a conclusion. Settled science? Is there any such thing? Sure, until the next discovery comes along that disproves the original paradigm.
Keep observing, questioning, experimenting, analyzing, and learning. That is SCIENCE.