No one. At all. Not even the geekiest science nerd ever actually likes science.

But, but,’ you say, ‘all the science shows and magazines and books and all the media talk about what science says! Surely that’s proof we’re in love with science!’

Nope. It proves that we love the stuff we study with science. Hey, planets, galaxies, dinosaurs and explosions are COOL! What’s not to love about astrophysics, paleontology, and good old fashioned chemistry? I mean, besides all the math?

Here’s the thing: not a one of those is inherently science. Ancients studied the stars with observation and reason and did a pretty good job of figuring out planetary and stellar motion. That ain’t hay – you try figuring out which one’s a planet and which one’s a star from just watching the sky all night long! But it’s not science – even though it’s obviously an effective study of the solar system.

Yes, that means physics isn’t inherently science. We use science to study physics but that doesn’t make physics science anymore than your car becomes Grandma’s house just because you used it to get to her house. Science isn’t the stuff we study – science is the method we use to study.

Science is the scientific method and the related methodologies used in the study of a given field or thing.

Here’s Khan Academy’s breakdown of the Scientific Method:

1. Make an observation.
2. Ask a question.
3. Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation.
4. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
5. Test the prediction.
6. Iterate: use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions.

There are other ways of stating the formula but at its core science involves observation, hypothesis, experiment. theory. Basically, see something you’re curious about, formulate your question, figure out a possible explanation and a way to test that explanation, test it, theorize based on the (cumulative) results.

So much easier said than done. And there is a TON of repetition to make sure that the results you are getting are the real results. Your experiments have to be designed so that they not only get a result but get a result that reflects the real world. The field of scientific methodology covers VOLUMES.

Most scientists, if they are lucky, had one class in pure methodology. Those that didn’t decide to go into banking instead probably regret that whole semester and if they weren’t already drinking, they were by the end.

Why? Because real, honest to goodness, in the weeds SCIENCE is mind numbingly BORING! Only the super geeks who happen to be super introverts, have no lives and have never seen Star Trek ever get into science enough to actually write about it. They are the weirdoes that write the methodology books.

They are also the heroes that keep us straight.

It’s easy to fake science. It’s even easier to ‘do science’ just not really well. Why not? Few people ever read scientific papers and many that do gloss over the methodology section unless they are trying to refute the paper or they are geeky enough to wonder how you managed the study.

Peer review is a political process by its nature – there are people involved, ergo political. But the bigger problem is just that science – real science – is just boring even to scientists. They are usually number geeks not methodology geeks. This matters because they have a bad habit of doing what everyone else does and ignoring the methodology section of the paper. They love digging into data tables and charts but would rather have teeth pulled than double check the methodology.

But science is methodology. Without that methodology, it’s not science, it’s just a bunch of numbers on paper that may or may not reflect the real world.

Which is just as true with computer modelling – first because it IS NOT SCIENCE. Second because humans aren’t made in size perfect – the guy programming this thing and his team are making mistakes and leaving out variables or assigning incorrect values to those variables.

This is why so far, no climate model has actually been accurate in any of its predictions. Computers are basically idiots that are really good at remembering and following instructions and really really bad at thinking – they don’t do the programming, people do.

Computers also don’t do science. Heck, most scientists don’t really do science, either. We pay them to apply the discoveries made to practical things. Applied science is a tremendous tool and where it is actually doing science, it’s superior to theoretical science because we see their results, not their guesses.

I just made all the theoretical scientists mad. I know guys, truth hurts sometimes.

Not really – what hurts is the lie you tell yourself that you are doing SCIENCE when it in fact, you haven’t done more than observations. Those are important but aren’t themselves science and you know it. Everyone loves a good chart (well, all the science geeks do) but that chart has to be based in excellent data collected from internally and externally valid experimentation and observational studies.

That’s all the gobbledy gook – it just means that the experiment was done properly and means something in the real world.

So, why does this matter in politics? Because supposed science is used every day to prove that this or that policy needs to be enacted or repealed. Our love affair with letting some expert tell us from on high what the SCIENCE says or the TRUTH is hurts us as a nation .

Everyone has an interest in what they are doing or they wouldn’t be doing it. Scientists have mortgages and put on pants one leg at a time like the rest of us. Just like the rest of us, it can be hard to walk away from a job, especially one you trained years for, because your boss wants a specific result or a new employee. Add layers of political influence, government financing, government regulation and business and universities that want to turn a profit, and yeah, this is a good way to get really bad results.

There’s no one simple, fix it and go home answer. But there is one thing we can all do to start the process of improving both our nation and the science we pay billions for – stop trusting the experts until they have explained exactly how they got their results.

Science, real science, is boring – half of you skimmed that bullet section with the steps to the Scientific Method, didn’t you? Here’s the good news – it’s just boring, not hard. Real science is actually pretty easy – it’s just follow the steps and make sure that you’re doing the boring stuff to get good data.

A few YouTube videos on scientific methodology or a book, if you are geek enough, will be more than enough to start removing the wool the last two centuries have been pulling over our eyes. Just find out what the rules actually are and check the methodology section of a study to see if they were followed.

Doing a good job with methodology makes it more likely that a result is correct but doesn’t 100% guarantee it; doing bad methodology 100% guarantees your study is garbage. Even if you got lucky and got the right result, bad methodology means no one can know for sure.

So yeah, real science is really boring. But boring is often where the real power is.