As popular mistrust of expert opinion grows, we increasingly encounter the following skeptical argument about science: Historically, even well-established theories and findings have been overturned; therefore, science can’t be trusted because it will eventually change again.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, made a version of this argument in August when defending his decision to halt hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA vaccine development despite the objections of vaccine scientists. He said that “science is always evolving” and the experts could not always be trusted.
The skeptics are right that science does not progress uniformly and steadily toward truth. … If so many widely accepted theories have been discarded, why should we trust the ones we have now?
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The history of science is indeed a graveyard of theories, but the fact that science keeps changing is a mark of its strength. It keeps changing because the world is complex and full of wonder. That isn’t a problem; it’s the engine that drives scientific progress.
