Hormones. Atoms. Quarks. Neurons. Glia. Synapses. Epochs. Eras. Fossils. Quantum Entanglement. Paleozoic.

Tye list of science-related words probably never ends. When science gets near the end of the current list, they make up new words. Like muons, bosons, ganglia, and Superposition. And a compound personal favorite: Inherent Uncertainty (IU). Hm. Inherent Uncertainty seems the perfect description for the scientific process since once we learn as much as we can in 1996, we then learn more in 2006, and learn more in 2016 and even more in 2026. And, often times what we learn in 2016 might change or contradict what we learned in 2006. If we’re smart enough to notice, science never reaches The End of anything, like it’s an infinity Russian Nesting Doll. IU, right?

Nope. IU is not a commonsense description of the history of science research but a convoluted description of the strange world of Quantum Mechanics (QM), the enclave of Quantum Entanglement (QE) and “sub-atomic” particles like the aforementioned muons, quarks, and God knows (right?) what else. BTW*, the real scientific IU is from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP) which states “you cannot simultaneously know both the precise position and exact momentum of a quantum particle.”**

That sounds like much of what modern science has become: the harder we look the more we learn about how much we really might not know, at this particular time. It also sounds like science is a ladder of learning, with each new discovery not really changing the past, but adding to it, making it bigger, brighter, smarter. Like building a home from the ground up by adding rows and rows of bricks until you get…where?

The idea that the discovery of new facts in 2026 may change the facts of 2006 is used by some as proof science has no idea what it is doing. The fevered and firmly believed opinion by some, then, is that science is useless and should not be depended on for solutions to life and society’s problems.

Stop a second and wonder if science doubters might not be right. Remember when protons, electrons, and neutrons were the “building blocks of nature”? I can still see the cute little models on Mrs. Timian’s desk just before our practice nuclear bomb safety drills.

I can’t say with certainty science is always right. I cannot even say it with Inherent Uncertainty, either. But…what else is there? If you want an internal combustion car to drive you around the world, where do you start to build it? Your own guesses and hunches? Your friends?*** Oddly enough, whatn school were the caveman scientists from who learned how to barbecue animal flesh? Or engineer arrow heads. I see a bunch of cavemen hunched over a rock, studying a chalk drawing on how to assemble a bow for the arrows. Ad, yes, maybe a cavewoman or two. Grunts, galore.

Warning: If you hear and read about science****, you could end up with applesauce for brains, or talk in mnemonics, a language spoken by The Select Few (TSF).

But there is hope, out there, in areas of study far, far away: There is a God’s Particle, The Higgs boson. It really exists and was found in 2014 in experiments at CERN, and The Large Hadron Collider. Please, Google it and learn more about what we know on this date, September 28, 2026.

And then try to keep up.

*With only 26 letters in the alphabet, will we run out of abbreviations and be forced to add a number: QE2, for example. Wait, isn’t that a ship?

**Per Google Ai. And why the hell not? And who wants to know, anyway?

***This kind of sounds like the premise of some a chaotic movie: “Let’s try this! It will be fun!”

****With out being a scientist.