Regardless of what you think of scientific discoveries, scientific theories or scientists themselves. One thing should be abundantly clear. The scientific principle, the scientific method works. You can question results and question the way people conduct their research, but the method itself, it works. And, it has lead to many great results. Basically from the moment we could keep a fire going and create fire ourselves, until we could make cell-phones or send satellites in to space and put people on the moon, we have done the same thing. 

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Observe - ask questions - think of explanations - make predictions and experiment - look at the results and move from there. This is how it works, regardless of how skeptical you are of scientists. The principle is so simple any one can use it. Even I did use it for my work and even in

my private life, for for some gardening experiments.

 

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What makes this principle reliable is not it's simplicity. It's peer review. Basically you show your

work or your results to other scientists and they check wether or not you've done your work

properly. If they concur, then the hypothesis can become a scientific theory. 

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This scientific theory will be tested in the same way as the hypothesis has been tested. And it doesn't have to be tested by the same scientist who tested the hypothesis. Many scientific theories are centuries old, but are still being tested. Like the Theory of Evolution. When the scientific theory holds up after scruteny, then it can become a law. 

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We know 'prescriptional laws' and 'descriptional laws'. And example of a prescriptional law would be "thou shalt not exceed the speedlimit". An example of a descriptional law would be Newtons law of universal gravitation, which describe why everything on earth falls with an approximate acceleration of 9.8m/s². Well, ofcourse it doesn't say that exactly. It says something like this: 

                                       

 

 

where F is the gravitational force working on 2 objects. G is the gravitational constant, m are the masses of both objects and r is the distance between the centers of the masses. 

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When discussing with people, skeptics, the phrase 'it's just a theory' is often heard. This statement is based on a misunderstanding of the scientic method. You start out with an 'observation' based on evidence. You then form a 'hypothesis'. When tests reveal your hypothesis to be correct, you then have a 'theory'. A theory has been tested and it did not fail it's tests. You can keep testing this theory, and when it doesn't fail, you end up with a descriptional scientific law. 

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Notice I said "did not fail". Nothing in science is really proven. The process used is called "falsification". With rigorous testing you try to falsify the predictions you made in your hypothesis. If they aren't falsified, then you can consider them to be true. But that is only until some test will falsify the predictions in the hypothesis. So, when a hypothesis has been tested and the predictions have not been falsified, it is a theory, which can be considered as fact. The theory of evolution for example has been tested over and over and has never been falsified (piltdown man was a hoax, which was discovered by scientists). The theory of evolution has proven itself to be thus reliable that it can be considered a fact. But that is only until evidence is found that will falsify the theory. 

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