NPR

Science's Journey From Data To Truth

There's more to the scientific method than what you learn in high school: Scientists argue with each other, too, and the participation of nature, whose say is absolute, is key, says Adam Frank.
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the Ant Nebula. Astrophysicist Adam Frank spent last week at an international meeting in Hong Kong trying to understand the science of what these objects tell us about the last gasp of dying stars like the sun.

In an era of "fake news" and "alternative facts," we now face a massive disconnect between what science thinks it understands about the world (i.e. global warming) and what some people want to believe is true.

But how does "science" come to know anything about anything? After all, what is science but a collection of people who call themselves scientists? So isn't it as flawed as everything else people create?

Last week, I had a chance to watch the human side of science in action. I was in Hong Kong at a meeting focused on how

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