facts and observations

Facts are facts until they are not. They start off as observations, become facts, then many of them (if not all) recede back to being observations.

Firstly, what is a fact? In science, a fact is an observation that's been confirmed so many times that scientists can, for all intents and purposes, accept it as "true."

Secondly, why do they recede back to observations?

Let's look at some real life examples.

We used to think surfaces are perfectly smooth and perfectly flat, like a bowling ball or a floor tile; whereas in actuality they are not. But we did not have enough technology (the proper tools) to observe the crookedness. Now we know that no surface in this universe, no matter how small or big, from quarks to stars, is perfectly smooth (remember, this is the current science. It can hold for centuries or it could change tomorrow). More interesting is that our initial observation did not change. To this day, if we hold a bowling ball or come close to a tile, we see it - and even worse we feel it- to be smooth.

Similarly we used to think the sun rotated around the earth. The observation never changed, the behavior of the sun never changed. But we got more data and more observations that altered that 'fact.' We used to think there was four elements in the whole universe, earth, wind, water, and fire; our observations said so. Our observations did not change. We discovered more insightful information that has allowed us to understand the underlying matter behind the four elements, the real elements so to speak, the periodic table of elements. We believed, for centuries, that time was a steady beat across the universe. That it is constant and unchanged. Now we know, for a "fact", that time is relative, that it changes depending on your speed and proximity to heavy and moving objects. We discovered that we can "actually" travel through time into the future (never the past).

Across all these examples, our original observations, which we held to be facts, did not change; to this day, we feel a bowling ball to be smooth, we see the sun rotate the earth, we see and feel the four elements. Yet all of these original observations have gone back to being merely observations, never to be taken as facts.

This is how science works, this is how it evolves. Science is built upon the errors we once thought to be true. That is why we should never practice religious behavior* in science.

Religious Behavior* is a post I published explaining the wrongful practice by some people in the scientific community.