Scientific Doctrine

It is comforting to remind that science is not a democracy. Although scientists are devoted to their freedom to research in any field of their expertise, they can not afford to be continuously wrong in their scientific pursuits. Because we are in the business of finding the truth of the nature, which is a very different discipline compared to that of the politics where politicians have to try as best as they can to satisfy the interests of the majority of the members of the society. Therefore, it's not uncommon in science that one scientist suddenly show up one day and prove everybody else has been wrong. Unless one wants to be totally isolated and extremely unpopular, that will be the most risky thing to do in the normal human society. But I think only scientists have the privilege to do that. Because scientific truth is not always popular. Furthermore, it can also be very unpleasant. Of course one of the good examples is the earlier heliocentric view of Copernicus and Galileo. Although many early cosmologies speculated about the motion of the Earth around a stationary Sun, it was not until the 16th century that Copernicus presented a fully predictive mathematical model of a heliocentric system, which was later elaborated by Kepler and defended by Galileo, becoming the center of a major dispute. As the principle of Occam's Razor demonstrates it, there is only one path to the truth of the nature which explains it with the least number of assumptions until there appears further simpler theory that explains wider mysteries of the nature than the previous one could. There are always human factors in this process that hinders the further progress of the science. Especially when there exists a form of a society that a group of scientists are involved in the same path of the research that has not been obviously in the correct one. The subject matter in this case is not that of a minor adjustment or improvement. The new doctrine demands the total overhaul of the direction and the way of thinking in the conventional way of pursuit of the truth. In this case, the new doctrine that comes up with much simpler explanation of the nature will have the uphill battle of gaining the public access of his/her finding because of the momentum that has been built up for a long time in the wrong direction of the pursuit performed by the majority of the scientists involved in the similar research. They simply won't give up their way of thinking that has been going on for a long time. The public confidence that has been built up around these scientists will make it extremely difficult for the new comers to gain access to the public to convey his/her view point which can be revolutionary. How can we fix this problem? Humans are not always rational. They can be extremely prejudiced and biased because of the various reasons. But one thing that is obvious is that this human factors can be detrimental to the development of the science and the advancement of the human society in general. We as a human society may need to consider the formation of a supreme council where this kind of matters can be discussed and resolved. The members of the supreme council in scientific matters have to be formed by various members of the society whose rationality has never been challenged. Their personal integrity should not be in question. They also should not be allowed to have any political affiliation. Most open minded and child like people will be sitting there amicably discussing the scientific matters without personal grievances. May be just another day dreaming. But remember things do start from day dreaming.