An Interactive Introduction to Organismal and Molecular Biology, 2021

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SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSIES | 19 Also, having unexpected results is very common in science, and the fact that things may turn out different than what you expected does not mean that it is a controversy. Even having a single published article contradicting a widely accepted concept does not result in controversy. However, once the scientific community continues to research the concept and is identifying mounting evidence that counters the accepted conclusion, then the concept may be a scientific controversy. Also seen in the exercise, some ideas may appear to be controversial in science but really are not. This may happen unintentionally. For instance, balanced reporting is generally considered good journalism, and balance does have its virtues. The public should be able to get information on all sides of an issue, but that doesn’t mean that all sides of the issue deserve equal weight. Science works by carefully examining the evidence supporting different hypotheses and building on those that have the most support. Journalism and policies that falsely grant all viewpoints the same scientific legitimacy effectively undo one of the main aims of science: to weigh the evidence. Theories, Hypotheses, and Laws To really understand scientific controversies, it is essential to know the relationship between laws, theories, and hypotheses.
20 | SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSIES An interactive or media element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://openbooks.lib.msu.edu/isb202/?p=43 Some introductory science courses treat hypotheses as “things we’re not sure about yet” and only explore established and accepted theories. In fact, hypotheses, theories, and laws are rather like apples, oranges, and kumquats: one cannot grow into another, no matter how much fertilizer and water are offered. Hypotheses, theories, and laws are all scientific explanations that differ in breadth, not in the level of support. Hypotheses are explanations that are limited in scope, applying to a fairly narrow range of phenomena. The term law is sometimes used to refer to an idea about how observable phenomena are related—the term is also used in other ways within science. Theories are deep explanations that apply to a broad range of phenomena and that may integrate many hypotheses and laws. Theories Theories are broad explanations for a wide range of phenomena. They are concise (i.e., generally don’t have a long list of exceptions and special rules), coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable. In fact, theories often integrate and generalize many hypotheses. For example, the theory of natural selection broadly applies to all populations with some form of inheritance, variation, and differential reproductive success—whether that population is composed of alpine butterflies, fruit flies on a tropical island, a new form of life discovered on Mars, or even bits in a computer’s memory. This theory helps us understand a wide range of observations (from the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the physical match between pollinators and their preferred flowers), makes predictions in new situations (e.g., that treating AIDS patients with a cocktail of medications should slow the evolution of the virus), and has proven itself time and time again in thousands of experiments and observational studies. Hypotheses Hypotheses are proposed explanations for a fairly narrow set of phenomena. These reasoned explanations are not guesses—of the wild or educated variety. When scientists formulate new hypotheses, they are usually based on prior experience, scientific background knowledge, preliminary observations, and logic. For example, scientists observed that alpine butterflies exhibit characteristics intermediate between two species that live at lower elevations. Based on these observations and their understanding of speciation, the scientists hypothesized that this species of alpine butterfly evolved as the result of hybridization between the two other species living at lower elevations.
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