Ultimately, scientific ideas must not only be testable, but must actually be tested — preferably with many different lines of evidence by many different people. This characteristic is at the heart of all science. Scientists actively seek evidence to test their
— even if the test is difficult and means, for example, spending years working on a single experiment, traveling to Antarctica to measure carbon dioxide levels in an ice core, or collecting DNA samples from thousands of volunteers all over the world. Performing such tests is so important to science because in science, the acceptance or rejection of a scientific idea depends upon the evidence relevant to it — not upon dogma, popular opinion, or tradition. In science, ideas that are not supported by evidence are ultimately rejected. And ideas that are protected from testing or are only allowed to be tested by one group with a vested interest in the outcome are not a part of good science.
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