There is a lot of confusion going around in general public regarding science. Several of my friends from non-scientific fields ask me why they see and read contradictory reports regarding a  single subject in science. Well, I agree with them. I too read these reports in the media. As a person from the field of science, I can understand the reasons but others might lose faith in science if this aspect is not explained properly. So am trying to tell here why this happens.

The main reason is scientific uncertainties. Some of these uncertainties arise when risk assessments are not based on studies directly on people or relevant features of our environment, but using models. Chemicals are often tested on rodents rather than people, for example, and climate change is studied using computer models rather than by experimenting on the atmosphere.

Researchers will be asking and answering different questions on the same topic, and consequently gathering and analysing different bodies of evidence.

Read these articles in scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=double-edged-hormo...

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/2013/09/16/the-...

and this one on beta-carotine: http://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/potential-dark-side-diets-high-beta-c...

If you read them, you will find how complex scientific research is. There will be several aspects that influence a test result. All these aspects that govern a scientific experiment and its results have to be taken into account and the whole picture has to be covered to get the facts correct.  *Even if one point is missed, the whole process will go waste.*

Here is another article that supports my view: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=drug-resistant-sup...

and another one: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/0...

Turning the tables on obesity and BMI: When more can be better.

Usually scientists will try to cover all the aspects while planning an experiment. However, in the cut throat world of competition, these days, some scientists, in order "to get there first", might knowingly or unknowingly ignore some points. Different conditions in which different experiments get conducted might give different results. Scientists stress this and clearly state the conditions in which their work is done. Moreover, scientific world lacks proper  equipment to deal with all the complexities of Nature and the Universe at present. *So the experiments conducted now with primitive equipment might yield different results from those of the ones which will be conducted several years later from now where technology will be more advanced.* The world of science will always be prepared for such corrections.

For eg., we have been told all these days that indiscriminate use of antibiotics is responsible for  antibiotic resistant bacteria. However, recent studies throw a new light in this matter. Please read these articles:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/04/11/cave-ba...

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone....

Data available in the primary stages of any scientific research make scientists think in a certain  way. Given the conditions in which they are working, they may be true up to a certain extent. As and when new data arrives science  corrects its old data. Therefore, keeping with the new findings gives a new perspective to scientific outlook and it is very important to always keep in touch with science to find out which findings are more closer to truth and facts.

Now read this article in THE Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/

this one in Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Pigeon-riddle-flies...

and this one in Physics News : http://www.physnews.com/bio-medicine-news/cluster233459976/

What do you think? I feel *the persons who conducted those earlier studies jumped to conclusions too early without conducting experiments in a proper manner.*

*When scientists from other areas of work try to do work in an area which is not their field of specialization, then  again they might go wrong.* Here is an example to show what happens where mathematicians who cannot understand Biology properly try to formulate things :

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/05/15/the-mat...

If a study - especially in psychology - that using a select group, say students,  as their subject population, jumps to conclusions based on incomplete information might not yield results that can be applied to everybody on this planet. *Results obtained by testing immature people like students or people who have peculiar cultures cannot be reliably generalized to represent all of humanity. The results do not necessarily apply to ‘people’ in general but specifically to students. The only group that correctly applies to the general statement is the one tested.* This should be mentioned clearly by the researchers. Students are a special population with unique characteristics that produce specific results when tested under specific conditions. Those results may or may not apply to or represent other specific populations or especially humans in general. This failing is ubiquitous in the ‘scientific’ study of human characteristics.

*There are forces that try to influence the results too.* Here is an example: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/352770/description/Behav...

(Behavioral research may overstate results

Some researchers say these things "might be responsible", but not certainly " are responsible". Bad science. I agree. Peer reviewing is what checks such anomalies but sometimes these peers too will be unable to find these mistakes. Scientists are human beings too. They too make mistakes. But what bothers me is those mistakes should not be so bad as to get a bad name to science. Personal ambitions have no place in science.

*In psychology you get the most controversial reports. Because your emotions and feelings are abstract and cannot be proved with certainty.  So author's opinion and speculation rather than facts get into the reports. Another field is Astrophysics where the inadequacy of human understanding and equipment we have right now proves to be a hindering aspect to come to any conclusion.*

In the absence of advanced equipment to find all the complexities of this universe, scientists first try to put forward some theories derived from formulas and calculations based on available data. These theories will be tested as times goes by and when found correct will be incorporated into the main stream science otherwise discarded. That is why you get so many models and theories in several scientific fields. Like the Higgs - Boson or the god particle theory. For now they are just theories and should be taken as such. Scientists caution you that more research is needed in these cases to prove the theories. *Science is a work in progress. Nothing is absolute truth here.*

*Sometimes when you conduct experiments during different times of the day you might get different results!* For example work on circadian rhythms. Read an interesting article on how the researchers working on the same problem got different results when the work was done at different times of the same day here: 

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150915-circadian-clocks/?utm_sourc...

*Atmospheric temperature where the animals are kept can too skew the results.*

Keeping mice in cold cages hides the effects of diet on metabolic disorders. Warming up those mice might lead to more reliable study results, researchers conclude in a study published online November 5 (2015) in Cell Metabolism .

Lab mice living in warmer habitats and fed high-fat and high-cholesterol diets showed more inflammation than they did when fed the same diets in colder homes. In mice engineered to be prone to metabolic disorders, the inflammation sped up the progression of atherosclerosis, a disease that causes hardening of arteries. But the inflammation surprisingly didn’t affect how well cells respond to insulin, a problem for people with obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Although an ideal temperature for mice might be closer to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), lab mice are typically kept at temperatures between 19° C and 22° C (66° F to 71° F). That temperature range might be OK for fully clothed humans, but it stresses mice, says study coauthor Ajay Chawla, a molecular physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

To keep warm, mice move around more and expend more energy than they would at higher, more comfortable temperatures. Heart rate and blood pressure go up, too. And unlike people, who can cope with the stress of being uncomfortably cool — by turning up the heat or putting on more clothes, for example — the mice experience this thermal stress all the time, Chawla notes. “It’s one thing to live in stress and have it dissipate,” he says. “It’s another to live in this kind of stress forever.”

The new results add to the concern that thermal stress affects the results of studies that use mice to model human disease. Earlier studies using mice kept at cooler temperatures could have masked correlations between diet and metabolic disease, and the problem could be broader, Chawla says. “Perhaps we’re not modeling human disease in mice well.” Hmmm....

Source of this observation: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chilly-cages-may-skew-disease-s...

Now read this article on left hand- right hand people : http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-it-true-that-le...

Here there are only two kinds to deal with. If you conduct one study, the data might depend on   the majority kind of people that have more IQ -say right-handed people- during the study which would be taken into account. This gives you a result. And again if somebody else undertakes another study at another point and place then left handed people might show to have more IQ! Then which one is correct? *So statistics always says to avoid mistakes, a large number of studies on large number of (sample) people have to be conducted. But in today's world that rule is not being followed properly and therefore the studies are becoming flawed.*

Here is another contradiction: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=personality-circui...

Here you can read another one: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113061227/iris-aging-biometri...

Sometime back I read a paper which says luck plays a part in getting cancer. And here is what other scientists working in the field think about it:

http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-studies-clash-over-mechanisms-of-...

Iris Aging Controversy In Biometrics

Here is a dumb study:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/scientists-get-...

It says people who have tattoos and ear piercings drink too much!

Maybe they are influenced by the company they keep and doing all these things is cool for them. But what is the co-relation? Isn't the study dumb? I want to stress on the point given at the end of this report: caution against a "tendency to see a tattoo or piercing and automatically profile or stereotype that individual as a 'high-risk person'." Yes, the findings of this study has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Another study explains why science can't really tell us whether pets are good for human health

*High resolution thinking is very important in research to concentrate on all finer details other wise the results will be flawed. Resolution gives "clarity" to science as the field demands it. In order to get it you have to consider and take into account several things that might effect the result of an experiment. Otherwise the results of scientific research becomes cloudy.* I will give a simple example here. I read an article in one of the prestigious science journals about research on lie detection which showed how forensic scientists should go about detecting lies. One of the important points mentioned there was on "establishing eye contact". The paper says if a person is unable to look directly into the eyes of an investigation officer, it suggests that the person is lying and is hiding something and therefore can be considered as "suspect". I pointed out that the research was flawed as it was not fine-tuned to all the possible truths. I told the people who conducted the research, in my part of the world - the culture tells women not to look directly into the eyes of men who are strangers as it is considered as bad manners. So if we go to some other part of the world and there if we are being investigated for some crime we haven't committed, and our minds that are conditioned by our cultures don't allow us to look directly into the eyes of a male investigating officer, does that mean we are lying and therefore can be treated as suspects?

( A girl from Vietnam who immigrated to the US told me this: Making direct eye contact seems weird to us - this one was difficult for me but I got better at it.  I spent so much of my youth bowing down to elders and revering them.  You knew your place and elders are held in such high esteem and regard - think of how much life and wisdom they have!  It was unimaginable to directly look at an elder in the eye - so startling and confronting!  I shudder at the very behavior even though I am more "elder" ranking now - still there will always be someone older than you.  Anyhow - juxtapose this "norm" to what is expected in the US - direct respectful eye contact. The practice is very difficult to follow! )

In the research work done by the forensic scientists this aspect of cultural conditioning of the mind was not taken into account. Therefore the work is not of "high resolution quality" and flawed. That is what peer - reviewing of scientific research does. It acts as high resolution instrument where all the flaws of your work will be put under a microscope, thoroughly searched for all the aspects -especially for flaws, tells you whether you are correct or not, whether you followed all the rules of science or not and ask you to correct yourself if your work is flawed. Here the criticism is based on facts and rules. Therefore in science you should have clarity (of high quality) of what you are doing. In order to get it your thoughts must be tuned to high resolution to get all the details correctly. No wonder the stressed out scientists make so many mistakes while conducting the research along with running the rat races!

* Faulty Antibodies Undermine Widespread Research

Two papers reveal that many commonly used research antibodies don’t bind as believed, highlighting the need to validate these reagents before use.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/faulty-antibodies-underm...

The ability of research antibodies to bind to their proteins of interest, or to the peptide tags attached to such proteins, can vary depending on the particular amino acids surrounding the target binding sites or modifications to those sites, according to reports published Tuesday (January 28) in Science Signaling. In some cases, such antibodies even cross-react with other proteins, the authors warn.

“These papers, like others, clearly indicate that even commercially available antibodies need thorough evaluations for the respective purposes for which they will be used”.

But these antibodies don’t always bind as expected in the experimetns, as a number of recent articles have highlighted. Still, the issue “keeps popping up its head because people don’t follow directions for validation,” says pathologist David Rimm of Yale School of Medicine “[Researchers] don’t take it seriously enough,” he says, explaining that there is still data from experiments with unvalidated antibodies being published in the literature.

Before going to the peer review, the researchers themselves can take precautions to avoid blunders in their work.

Problematic areas can be avoided when people work in groups where each member can contribute and check and recheck the conditions under which the experiments can be conducted.

All the researchers in science have to keep the whole picture or their work before them and understand it properly and discuss it with their group members in detail.

Repeated experiments in various conditions is another solution to check and recheck the results.

Your lab results fail in the field conditions because of unknown factors working in the field. Fine tuning your gray matter to all the effects and possibilities is one way to counter this. But still you never know what is awaiting to spoil your results. Years of work will go waste. Be prepared for these unknown possibilities.
I know, as a person of science how difficult it is to explain people this and really build trust in science. Being honest about science's inadequacies is perhaps one way to do it.

Clarity of the problem undertaken  - what is the main aim of your work, how to go about it, what are the hurdles, how to overcome them, how to get flawless results and how to come to conclusions  - is very important in any scientific research.

Not participating in rat races and conducting studies just for the sake of science is very important. What is the use of a flawed study -even if it is the first of its kind -and  regretting it later?

I think the suggestions given above will help researchers in science to conduct flawless studies when followed properly.

When there are no controversies and confusion, I am sure people will trust science more and more.