But humans want answers, and science says 'we can give you those!'
Eh, that's how science is represented, but I don't think that's what science actually says. Science more says "the experimental evidence is consistent with theory X" but doesn't generally present things as "things are definitely X." (What it can do, somewhat effectively, is to say that things are almost definitely not Y, Z, or Q.)
I think what science generally does is best described as... iterating towards "answers": over time, theories are refined (or thrown out) as new evidence becomes available, or when the things predicted by those theories turn out not to show up experimentally. Each individual theory may not be correct, but generally they're more correct than what has come before. Asimov has a good essay on this.
Medical science, I'll admit, has a much harder time with experimental evidence because it's impossible to control for the millions of different variables that go into the creation of any given person. There are some things you can do to give better controls (this is why genetically identical lab rats are so useful), but... yeah, it's harder than some other areas of science. It still trends in the right direction, but has definitely had some big missteps (which people notice particularly much because, well, medical science is a lot more directly impacting on people than, say, radio astronomy...
no subject
Eh, that's how science is represented, but I don't think that's what science actually says. Science more says "the experimental evidence is consistent with theory X" but doesn't generally present things as "things are definitely X." (What it can do, somewhat effectively, is to say that things are almost definitely not Y, Z, or Q.)
I think what science generally does is best described as... iterating towards "answers": over time, theories are refined (or thrown out) as new evidence becomes available, or when the things predicted by those theories turn out not to show up experimentally. Each individual theory may not be correct, but generally they're more correct than what has come before. Asimov has a good essay on this.
Medical science, I'll admit, has a much harder time with experimental evidence because it's impossible to control for the millions of different variables that go into the creation of any given person. There are some things you can do to give better controls (this is why genetically identical lab rats are so useful), but... yeah, it's harder than some other areas of science. It still trends in the right direction, but has definitely had some big missteps (which people notice particularly much because, well, medical science is a lot more directly impacting on people than, say, radio astronomy...