Science is an objective method for making good decisions.
Science is an ideal which may not exist, but it is society's best attempt to do what is right in a way that is not subjective.
Everyone should learn a little about health and disease, but many people are afraid to do so because they think that they cannot understand the science behind the important issues. This is not the case; doctors and researchers do not do magic and their work is no secret. Everyone has a right to know what is happening in the world to combat illness, and even a person with very little science background can be an informed and model citizen with respect to personal health awareness. The science section of this website exists to provide the minimal amount of information that a person needs to understand health issues presented in its descriptions.
What science is
Science always involves numerical measurement. This can mean counting something and keeping records
of the things counted, or it can mean using a tool to get a number. Tools are used to give precision,
which means that if the tool is used in a certain way, then it will always give the same numbers
for the same situation. The best tools are also accurate, which means they give true numbers.
Just because a tool is precise does not mean that it is also accurate.
Once a person has begun measuring things and recording the results, science has begun.
Scientific Method
The scientific method is a plan for using recorded numbers. It is a cyclical system, and it ends when a person
is satisfied. The three steps, in no particular order, are observation, theory, and experiment.
"Observation" means making a record of what is happening. "Theory" means getting an idea about what makes a certain thing happen. "Experiment" means doing something to determine whether or not a theory is correct.
Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-controlled Study
All people have bias. Using tools eliminates some bias, but still, there is always
a need to remove subjective human opinion to find greater truth.
The single best tool that scientists use in any human medical experiment is the "double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial". "Double-blind" means that the scientist who orders the experiment is twice-removed from making the results - the scientist gives instructions to another researcher who conducts the experiment, and the researcher - if studying a human - does not tell the human test subject whether he is actually part of the experimental test group, or if he is just part of a control group which simply represents normal people. "Randomized" means that there is no way for the researcher or the human test subject to be able to determine who is part of the experiment and who is not. "Placebo-controlled" means that people who are in the controll group go through every part of the experiment that the other test subjects go through.
The typical example of this is the testing of a new medicine. The doctor who invented the medicine gives two bottles to a researcher. One of these bottles contains the medicine, and the other contains sugar pills which look like the medicine. The researcher gives each of the bottles to a different person, and the people report whether the medicine worked. No one but the original scientist knows who got the medicine until the end of the experiment.
This has to be done, because in every medical experiment, if you give sugar pills to enough people, there will always be some who say that the sugar pills helped them.
Encouragement to be informed
Sanjeevani Booti takes the stand that the more information that people have access to, the better
they will be. Our organization encourages everyone to learn as much as they can for as long as they
can, because the benefits in life are great.
