Uncertainty spurs scientific progress

SUMMER SERIES: HOW SCIENCE WORKS - Citizens and scientists have two very different ways of reasoning. While citizens find comfort in certainty, scientists need to continually challenge the facts. Is it possible for these two groups to find common ground? Research is by nature a dynamic process. Scientists start with an observation, make a hypothesis, test the hypothesis through experiments, analyze the results, and form a conclusion. But more often than not, that conclusion raises new questions, which lead to more observations, new hypotheses, more experiments, and so on. This capacity to accept uncertainty and use it to move forward is one of the strengths of scientific research. Scientists view uncertainty as a way to measure just how accurately they're able to describe a phenomenon.