SPECIAL FEATURE

Science Creates Knowledge

Through a Community Effort

Why Trust Science? Science Is Self-Correcting

Because Scientists Are Critical
of Their Own Work
If you’re reading these words right now, you no doubt have access to the Shared Practices Increase the
Internet. So much of our daily lives revolves around this technology— Accuracy of Scientific Findings
from our education and entertainment to our ability to interact with
friends and family anywhere on the planet. We use the Internet to order Science Is a System for
groceries, keep abreast of the news, listen to music, make dinner plans, Understanding the World That
and access information. Generates Testable Predictions
In 1990, the Internet did not exist. At least not as we know it. Initially Scientific Thinking Is
devised as a means for scientists to communicate and share data with
Continually Refined by
one another, the Internet has since evolved into a worldwide network of
information that anyone with access to a computer or smartphone can New Evidence
tap into. Most Scientific Knowledge
It’s nearly impossible to imagine (or to remember) what life was like Builds Gradually Toward
before the Internet. And that’s just one example of how the products of a Reliable Consensus
science—and the efforts of scientists—have changed our everyday lives
in immeasurable ways. Think of electricity, phones, even toilets—not to Understanding the Scientific
mention the agricultural advances that provide the food we eat or the Process Can Help Us
medicines and vaccines that help us to live twice as long as our ancestors Differentiate Between
did just a few hundred years ago (Figure 1).
Misinformation and Legitimate
We don’t spend much time thinking about these things, because we don’t Science
really have to. We trust that they will work. We trust that when we plug in
our phone, the battery will charge. We trust that when we hop in the car, Ensuring That Science Remains
the engine will convert the chemical energy of gasoline into the kinetic Trustworthy Requires Constant
energy of motion. And we trust that we can navigate the Internet to find Vigilance
the goods, services, or information we seek.
Trust in Science Is Essential for
Our Future as a Civilization
2 Why Trust Science?

Figure 1 Robust and reliable science is

80
a driving force behind human progress.
Life expectancy, for both men (red line) and
women (blue line), has nearly doubled in 70
the past 150 years. Innovations based on

life expectancy (years)

scientific investigation—including sanitation, 60
health improvements
vaccines, and disease treatments—account in older population
50 e.g., treatment of
for most of that increase. (Data from the
heart disease
UK Office for National Statistics, 2015.)
40
health improvements
in younger population
30 e.g., childhood
immunization
20

10

0
1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990 2010
year

But why do we trust in these technologies that—let’s be honest—most

of us can’t even begin to fully understand? How many of us know how a
search engine works or how “packet switching” allows information to be
sent from one computer to another? Do we understand how recharge-
able lithium-ion batteries operate? Do we have any idea how Bernoulli’s
principle creates the lift that keeps a jet plane aloft?
Probably not. After all, few of us are experts on any of these subjects.
But, generally speaking, we all trust that we can recharge our phones at
the end of the day and that the aircraft that’s taking us on a long-awaited
vacation won’t suddenly drop from the sky midflight. We trust that
these things will work because we can trust the engineering that pro-
duced them—technological advances enabled by principles derived from
scientific observation and experimentation.
But how can we tell when information is trustworthy? Many stories we
hear on the news or encounter on the Internet begin with the phrase: “a
new study shows...” And though we can rely on the infrastructure of the
Internet—the hardware and programming that allow it to function—we
certainly can’t trust a great deal of the information we encounter there.
So how do we know which studies are robust and reliable—especially
when we often lack the expertise to analyze the experimental design and
data ourselves?
In this feature, we address the question of why we can trust science—and
how we identify what science we can trust. We begin by explaining how
scientists work together, as part of a community, to generate knowledge
that is reliable. We describe how the scientific process builds a consen-
sus, and how new evidence can change the ways that scientists—and,
ultimately, the rest of us—see the world. Last, but not least, we explain
how, as informed citizens, we can all become “competent outsiders”
who are equipped to evaluate scientific claims and are able to separate
science facts from science fiction.

Science Creates Knowledge Through a Community Effort

When we imagine a scientist, we might picture someone working long,
lonely hours at a laboratory bench (beakers boiling in the background).
Or maybe we think of Gregor Mendel, toiling alone in his abbey gar-
den, painstakingly breeding and recording the appearance of generation
after generation of pea plants (as discussed in Chapter 19). But science,
particularly modern science, is very much a team sport. In 2021, for
 Essential Cell Biology 3

example, investigators published a fully complete, “telomere-to-telomere”

human genome sequence (as discussed in Chapter 9). The resulting
paper included more than 100 authors from 20 different institutions
around the world.
And that is only one of thousands of such studies published that year. In
any field of science, from genome biology to subatomic particle physics,
researchers labor within a broad scientific community. These investigators
share their data in publications and debate their findings at conferences.
They write research proposals that are reviewed by their scientific peers.
They give seminars where others critique and question everything from
their methods to how they interpret their results.
In response to such collegial criticism, scientists devise even more rigorous
strategies for testing their models and verifying their observations. They
contemplate the findings of others in the field and adjust their concepts to
best accommodate all of the available data. In this manner, the scientific
community strives to come to a consensus. Or as Ludwik Fleck—a Polish
microbiologist who studied the sociology of science—put it, “A truly
isolated investigator is impossible....Thinking is a collective activity.”
Of course, individual scientists can make mistakes. Scientists are only
human. But they are professionals who have dedicated their lives to
trying to understand the natural world. So we should be able to trust
their training and expertise like we trust a pilot to land our plane safely.
As scientist and historian Naomi Oreskes notes in her book Why Trust
Science, “We trust experts to do jobs for which they are trained and we
are not....Scientists are our designated experts for studying the world.
Therefore, to the extent that we should trust anyone to tell us about the
world, we should trust scientists.”

Science Is Self-Correcting Because Scientists Are Critical

of Their Own Work
When we first learn about “the scientific method,” we are told that sci-
entists make observations and then develop a hypothesis—a proposal
explaining those observations—that can be tested by some sort of experi-
ment. If the results support the hypothesis, the hypothesis is confirmed
and the investigators can then conduct additional research to further
refine their model.
But that picture is vastly oversimplified. In reality, hypotheses are not pri-
marily meant to be proven, but disproven. Scientists are trained to be
skeptical—even (or especially) of their own hypotheses. Good scientists
operate with the knowledge that their initial models may require revision
or complete abandonment. Some might even argue that a major goal
of science is to eliminate erroneous ideas and incorrect interpretations.
In his book If Science Is to Save Us, astronomer and former president of
the Royal Society Martin Rees argues that being critical is in a scientist’s
professional interest. “That's because the greatest esteem goes to those
who contribute something unexpected and original,” he writes, “and
especially to those who can overturn a consensus.”
Because science advances through a rigorous community-based testing
of ideas, it effectively corrects its own mistakes—steering us away from
misinformation and toward an increasingly accurate understanding of
the world.
Skepticism allows science to progress. But it only does so because, as a
community, scientists share a similar set of values. As Jacob Bronowski,
a physicist and philosopher, noted in Science and Human Values:
“Science confronts the work of one [investigator] with that of another
4 Why Trust Science?

and grafts each on each; it cannot survive without justice and honor and
respect. . . . Only by these means can science pursue its steadfast object,
to explore truth.”

Shared Practices Increase the Accuracy of Scientific

Findings
Shared values alone are not enough to make science self-correcting.
Over time, the scientific community has developed a set of critical
practices that facilitate the vetting of knowledge—enabling investiga-
tors to identify problems in their theories and experiments and allowing
them and their colleagues to pursue the necessary corrections. These
practices include:
1. Independent replication: When investigators publish their work,
they provide comprehensive descriptions of the experimental
procedures they followed. This sometimes excruciating level of
detail—which can include not only the reagents they used, but
where these ingredients were purchased, how they were prepared,
and even what lot numbers appear on the side of the bottle—is
meant to allow others in the community to reproduce the original
experiment (or conduct one that is very similar). This independent
examination is essential for either corroborating the original
results or, alternatively, indicating that something is amiss.
2. Randomized controlled trials: How do researchers determine
if a particular intervention—whether it’s a new drug, vaccine,
therapy, or even an overhauled high-school science curriculum—
is more effective than the procedure or practice currently in use?
They compare what happens to a group of people who receive the
new treatment to a comparable collection of volunteers who do
not. To make sure that this “control group” does not differ in some
significant way from the experimental group, such studies randomly
assign some participants to receive the new treatment and others
to receive either the conventional, current treatment or a placebo—
an inactive substance or “dummy” treatment. Such randomized
controlled trials are expensive, but they represent the “gold standard”
approach to determining, with certainty, whether a new treatment
is both effective and safe.
3. Blinded analysis: In a blinded analysis, investigators attempt
to remove any bias from their interpretation by “not looking at
the answer” ahead of time. In clinical trials to test the safety and
effectiveness of drugs or vaccines, for example, the investigators
conducting the study typically do not know which participants
are receiving a treatment and which are getting a placebo (nor,
frequently, do the participants themselves). Such blinded studies
are more trustworthy, because they minimize the possibility that
investigators might “fudge” their data—whether purposely or
unconsciously— to obtain the desired result.
4. Statistical validation: Scientific data will always exhibit some
degree of variability, so scientists use statistical analyses to quantify
this inconsistency. Statistics allow scientists to assess how likely it
is that a particular result was obtained by chance rather than by the
experimental manipulation or treatment. To avoid being misled,
good scientists design their experiments with all the appropriate
controls, replicate samples, and a total sample size that is large
enough to assure them that their results are meaningful and not
simply due to chance.
5. Peer review: Everything that scientists do is subject to review by
others in the community. Before they even begin their research,
 Essential Cell Biology 5

investigators typically submit requests for funding to pay for their

experiments, explaining what they intend to do and how they intend
to do it. These applications are evaluated by other investigators in
their field to ensure that only well-designed projects will receive
financial backing. The articles that scientists write to describe their
research are similarly assessed before being published in “peer-
reviewed” journals. In this process, scientists with the required
expertise (whose identities are traditionally not revealed to the
study’s authors) vet the paper before it is accepted for publication.
And once research papers are published, all of the information they
present is subject to critique by the broader scientific community.
By publishing their results and subjecting their methods and analyses
to critical review, scientists facilitate the exchange of ideas, challenge
hypotheses and interpretations, and encourage each other to continually
reassess their theories and refine their conclusions. Thus, although indi-
vidual scientists may get things wrong, community-driven corrections
allow the field to progress toward an ever greater understanding.
Only those claims that have passed the rigorous testing of community-wide
experimentation and critique are corroborated, thereby moving us toward
a consensus that is reliable and in which we can trust. As Oreskes puts it:
“...the basis for our trust is not in scientists—as wise or upright individuals—
but in science as a social process that rigorously vets claims.”

Science Is a System for Understanding the World

That Generates Testable Predictions
Science does not generate consensus by simply corroborating the same
experimental results, again and again. The beauty of the scientific enter-
prise is its ability to generate logical predictions about how the natural
world will behave in the future by producing models that are derived from
past observations and experiments. These models are then tested repeat-
edly by investigators in other labs—and even in other fields of science—to
determine whether they always hold true. New experiments may con-
firm a model, lead to its alteration in small or large ways, or prompt its
rejection and replacement with a model that accommodates all of the
data. In this way, science has produced a vast web of interconnected,
well-established knowledge that allows us not only to describe or
account for the things we observe today—but to predict what will happen
tomorrow, next Tuesday, and 100 years from now.
In the late 1600s, Sir Isaac Newton came up with his laws of motion to
explain how physical forces affect the movement of objects. These laws
are still valid today. Anywhere on the planet, we can use them to predict,
say, where to stand to catch a ball. But they also apply in space, where
they can predict, with almost uncanny accuracy, when an eclipse will
take place, how often a comet will return to our skies, or whether deto-
nating a precisely targeted explosion will provide enough force to alter
the path of an asteroid that might otherwise collide with the Earth in five
months, five years, or five centuries.

Scientific Thinking Is Continually Refined by New

Evidence
Science is based on observations—and on verification of those obser-
vations. Yet observations alone, no matter how numerous, are rarely
definitive. New information can always change the way we see the world.
Thus, although we can believe or trust in theories that have passed
rigorous testing, these ideas must always be subject to revision based
on new evidence.
6 Why Trust Science?

The history of science reveals that even a major scientific consensus can
occasionally be overturned by an accumulation of evidence that does not
corroborate the current thinking. Although this does not happen often, a
critical aspect of science is that even popular ideas are continuously scru-
tinized. In the 1830s, for example, few in the scientific community believed
that cells arise solely from preexisting cells by the process of cell divi-
sion. Prominent cytologists Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann,
whose extensive microscopic observations gave rise to the idea that
cells are the building blocks of all living tissues (discussed in Chapter 1),
insisted that new cells crystallize from a special slurry of sugar, gum, and
mucus found within or between other cells. Ultimately, as microscopes
became more powerful and biologists grew more adept at preparing
Figure 2 Improvements in microscopy
allowed scientists to see, quite clearly, tissues in a way that avoided introducing visual artifacts, the evidence
that cells arise from preexisting cells. that cells are the product of cell division could no longer be disregarded
The first distinct visualization of cell division (Figure 2).
in a multicellular organism came from an
examination of a filamentous freshwater Similar fundamental shifts have taken place in the field of molecular cell
green alga. This drawing, which shows biology. As we discuss in Chapter 2, at the beginning of the twentieth
cells dividing at the very tips of a slender century there was a consensus among chemists that macromolecules—
silkweed called Conferva, was published in polymers composed of a very large number of atoms held together by
1832. (From B. C. Dumortier, Recherches sur
la structure comparée et le développement
covalent bonds—simply could not exist. Instead, molecules as large as
des animaux et des végétaux. Nova Acta proteins were believed to be formed as collections of loosely associ-
Physico-Med. Acad. Caesar. Leopoldino- ated small organic molecules. Eventually, new methods for examining
Carolinae Nat. Curios. 16:217–312, 1832.) proteins and measuring their mass allowed chemists to prove definitively
the existence of the macromolecules that make life possible (see How
We Know, pp. 64–65).

Most Scientific Knowledge Builds Gradually Toward

a Reliable Consensus
Although the process of scientific inquiry occasionally leads to remarka-
bly dramatic changes in our understanding of the natural world, changes
in the scientific consensus are commonly more gradual. As the collec-
tion of studies on a particular topic accumulates, the community moves
closer to an accepted understanding in smaller steps, without drastic
change, producing a refined model that better fits the data.
One example of this gradual refinement is the “fluid mosaic” model of cell
membranes that is presented in all modern biology textbooks, including
our own. A century ago, Dutch physiologists Gorter and Grendel proposed
that cell membranes consist of a lipid bilayer (as discussed in Chapter 11).
But not everyone agreed with this proposal. Most notably, in 1935, physi-
cal chemists Danielli and Davson came up with a membrane model
that resembled a protein-lipid triple-decker sandwich: a lipid bilayer
stabilized by a twin layer of proteins on either side (Figure 3A).
This model was revised when subsequent biochemical and structural
studies indicated that membrane proteins are hydrophobic and come
in different sizes. Hence they would not be expected to form uniform
layers on either side of a lipid bilayer. And fluorescent tagging revealed
that membrane proteins are highly mobile (see Figure 11-30). Thus,
rather than forming a fixed, static, rigid outer layer on either side of a
cell membrane, membrane proteins are embedded within a flexible
lipid bilayer. The fluid-mosaic model, proposed in 1972, accommodated
these observations, and by 1975, the determination of the structure
of bacteriorhodopsin by electron microscopy provided unambiguous
evidence that membrane proteins can span the bilayer (Figure 3B).
The gradual approach to the truth that is characteristic of science can also
be seen in the cell biology textbooks that we have written, the first of which
was published in 1983. Over the past 40 years, our illustrations of many
 Essential Cell Biology 7

lipid
bilayer
(5 nm)

lipid molecule protein

(A) (B) molecule

Figure 3 Models of membrane architecture have evolved over time. A  fter a

consensus emerged that membranes contained a lipid bilayer as a basic structural
component, there was still uncertainty about how proteins were involved in their
structure. An early model envisaged a triple-decker structure (A) in which a pure lipid
bilayer is tightly sandwiched between two layers of protein molecules. It took another Figure 4 Refinements in the structure
40 years of experiments to arrive at the current model of membrane architecture, the of ATP synthase led to a deeper
fluid-mosaic model, that is still generally accepted (B). understanding of how this protein
complex functions. It required a collective
effort of many scientists over time to produce
biological molecules (Figure 4) and processes (Figure 5) have become our increasingly detailed knowledge about
increasingly (and noticeably) more accurate with each successive edition. ATP synthase—the protein machine that
makes ATP. (A) In the First Edition of our
textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell,
Understanding the Scientific Process Can Help Us published in 1983, all we knew was that
Differentiate Between Misinformation and Legitimate the protein complex was embedded in a
Science membrane and that, based on electron
microscopy studies, it had the rough
When the Internet and its collection of publicly accessible web pages shape of a lollipop. (B) By the time the
was launched in the 1990s, no one could have predicted how central First Edition of Essential Cell Biology was
published in 1998, more was known about
this global system of shared resources would become in our lives. With
the various protein subunits and their
the rapid expansion of the Internet and the unforeseen proliferation of relative abundance, but precise structural
social media, all of us have unlimited access to a virtual tidal wave of detail was still lacking. (C) By 2023, when this
information—and misinformation. Today, anyone can promote prod- Sixth Edition was published, the molecular
ucts or ideas to hundreds or thousands or even millions of people with architecture of the complex had been
progressively refined in many laboratories
the click of a button. Sadly, a great deal of this information is not legit-
by cryo-electron microscopy, and its detailed
imate. Influencers can produce or publicize dubious or unconfirmed mechanism of action deduced and accepted.

(A) (B) (C)

H+ INTERMEMBRANE
SPACE

H+ carrier
(rotor
ring)

MATRIX
F0 rotor
H+
central
stalk

peripheral
stalk
stator
F1 ATPase
head
8 Why Trust Science?

(A)

(B)

Ca2+

H2N

H2N
H2N COOH
2 nm
HOOC NH2

COOH

COOH peptide portion of

target protein,
e.g., CaM-kinase

Ca2+

Figure 5 Improvements in methods for studying protein structure have also

provided insights into how calcium drives many important biological processes.
(A) In 1983, when the First Edition of Molecular Biology of the Cell was published,
calcium was known to act as a second messenger through activation of the protein
calmodulin. With no available structural information, we knew little more about this
activation step than depicted in this simplified drawing. (B) A few years later, the
molecular structure of calmodulin was determined by X-ray crystallography, and
additional studies using nuclear magnetic resonance revealed that calcium induces
a dramatic change in the conformation of calmodulin, allowing it to wrap around its
target proteins. With this new information, we were able to present the figure found
in the First Edition of Essential Cell Biology in 1998. This model is still accepted and
continues to be confirmed by additional experiments—as reflected by the figure that
appears in the Sixth Edition (Figure 16-25).

studies—or even fabricate them out of thin air. Some promote sincere
but unscientific beliefs, like a link between autism and childhood
vaccines. Others might do so for financial gain, like an oil company
lobbyist denying the role of fossil fuels in global climate change.
Misinformation is also spread for political reasons—with nations or
politicians devoting major resources to sowing confusion and enmity
to disadvantage their competitors. In this informational free-for-all,
false claims often become quickly sensationalized and disseminated
to millions of people.
We all need to think critically when we read or see stories on the web
or in the popular press. However, given that we can’t be experts in most
fields of science, how can we discern whether a particular study or story
is trustworthy? How can we inoculate ourselves against being fooled
 Essential Cell Biology 9

by scientific falsehoods? A recommended three-step process is outlined

in Figure 6.
The first step involves evaluating the source of the claim. Who is provid-
ing the information? How did they come up with their conclusions? Do
they have economic or political reasons to spread these views? What,
if anything, might they be selling? It is also critical to learn whether the
source of the information has the expertise and credentials needed to
validate the assertion. Does that individual have the appropriate training
(an MD or PhD degree, for example)? Do they conduct research in the
field? Are their views respected by their scientific peers? Note that the use
of ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19 was ceaselessly promoted
by a small but vocal group of physicians, some of whom had previously
been criticized by their peers in the medical community for advocating
other unproven and ineffective treatments. These unsupported claims
were then amplified by influencers with no scientific or medical training
at all.
If the source of the information seems credible, one can consult the web-
sites of reliable organizations, such as the National Academy of Sciences
(in the United States) or the Royal Society (in the United Kingdom), to

Q1: Is the provider of information credible?

Are they unbiased and free of any conflict of interest: for example,
do the individuals or organizations lack any economic or political
reason for promoting their views?
Do they provide evidence from sources that are scientifically
reliable (for example, multiple peer-reviewed publications) to
support their claim?

NO
YES
Reject the claim

Q2: Does the provider of the information have the expertise

to vouch for the claim?
Do they have training, a track record, and expertise in a relevant
field of science?
Do they have a good reputation among their peers?

NO
YES
Reject the claim

Q3: Is there a consensus among relevant scientific experts?

NO YES

The claim requires The claim is likely to

further investigation. be correct.
What is uncertain and
what do the experts
agree on?
Figure 6 A simple, three-step process can
What other explanations
might be plausible? be used to evaluate scientific information.
This “fast and frugal” method uses three
What additional
information would be filters to differentiate between claims that
needed to support the are not supported by science and those
claim? that are. Adapted from J. Osborne and
D. Pimentel, Science 378:246–248, 2022.
Reprinted with permission from AAAS.
10 Why Trust Science?

investigate whether there is a scientific consensus on a contentious issue.

In the case of climate change, for example, it is clear that the community
of climatologists speaks with a broad consensus when it concludes that
human activity is contributing to global warming. The evidence is unde-
niable and overwhelming.
Even highly respected scientists can be wrong when they venture too far
from their areas of expertise. Much damage was done in the recent past
by small groups of senior distinguished physicists who first insisted that
it was uncertain that smoking caused cancer, later cast doubt that acid
rain was caused by smokestack emissions, and until their last breaths
opposed the idea that greenhouse gases cause climate change—all heav-
ily promoted by financial support from the industries that would benefit
from their “expert” testimonials.
False or exaggerated claims are often made for products aimed at improv-
ing health and wellness. For example, billions of dollars are made each
year through the sale of dietary supplements that are unlikely to be of any
use. A truly scientific study of these supplements would be very expensive
and difficult to conduct—volunteers can’t be sequestered in a laboratory
where their diets can be rigorously controlled for years. But huge profits
can be made by selling supplements that are supposedly “backed by sci-
ence.” The so-called experts promoting these products might even insist
that they have been “proven 100% effective.” Of course, anyone claiming
to know something with absolute certainty should always be viewed with
suspicion. One does not have to be an expert in any field of science to
know that such an assertion is literally too good to be true.

Ensuring That Science Remains Trustworthy Requires

Constant Vigilance
By now it should be clear that the entire scientific enterprise is built on
trust. Scientists must trust one another to adhere to the standards and
practices that the community has established to enable researchers to rely
on—and build on—each others’ findings. This confidence is a foundational
component of the iterative process of investigation that allows scientists
to come to a consensus and provide us with knowledge that we can trust.
At the same time, scientists have an obligation to be open and honest
with all of us. Much of the authoritative research we encounter in the
news is supported by our tax dollars. And lives can depend on whether
scientific studies are rigorously conducted and accurately presented.
Scientists therefore have an ethical responsibility to communicate their
findings in a clear and straightforward manner, honestly explain what
their conclusions mean (and what they don’t mean), and, as much as
possible, make their data available for public scrutiny.
This policy of openness did not arise spontaneously. Worldwide, the insti-
tution of science has long worked to establish a system of values and
incentives that strongly encourage investigators to be meticulous with
their methodology and scrupulous when it comes to disseminating their
results. The scientific community actively discourages various forms of
“bad behavior,” such as the publishing of fraudulent or misleading data or
the promotion of unverified research. Failure to adhere to community val-
ues and practices represents a severe threat to a scientist’s entire career,
inasmuch as success in science requires the respect of one’s fellow
scientists—both to have one’s ideas considered by others and to obtain
the funding needed to carry out research.
Even with such safeguards, maintaining the cultural values of science
requires a continuous input of energy and attention. When it comes to
 Essential Cell Biology 11

shoring up the pillars of the scientific edifice, venerable scientific acad-

emies, such as those mentioned earlier, often lead the charge. The Royal
Society in England has long been the model for this type of honorific
organization; established in 1660, the Royal Society set standards for
scientific excellence by choosing outstanding scientists as its members
and creating effective mechanisms for their frequent interactions. In the
United States, the National Academy of Sciences performs a similar func-
tion. Established in 1863 by an Act of Congress approved by Abraham
Lincoln, the Academy is charged with “providing independent, objec-
tive advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology.”
To continue to fulfill this obligation, a key mission of this institution
has been to educate young investigators: instilling in them the cultural
values that are required for science to remain healthy and offering
guidance on how they can mentor future generations of scientists—
fostering in them the love of learning that is the cornerstone of a life in
science (Figure 7A).
The academies also labor to identify and eradicate threats to scientific
integrity. One such threat comes from hundreds of for-profit publications
that have proliferated in recent years. For a fee, these “fake” or “preda-
tory” journals promise extremely rapid publication, while falsely claiming
that they engage in a legitimate peer-review process. Honest peer review,
as we have discussed, is vital for the health of science, and its absence
ultimately erodes the reliability and trustworthiness of research. These
journals are therefore being actively challenged by the InterAcademy
Partnership (IAP), a collaboration of more than 140 science, medicine,
and engineering academies across the world (Figure 7B).
In these ways, the continued vigilance of individual investigators, scien-
tific academies, and other organizations ensures the ongoing integrity of
the scientific enterprise—demanding that researchers carry on operating
with openness and honesty while maintaining the trust of their fellow
scientists, the broader community, and the public at large.

Trust in Science Is Essential for Our Future as a

Civilization
Science has produced such a vast array of knowledge about how the
natural world operates that it not only allows humanity to foresee likely
future calamities—such as climate change or a catastrophic collision
with a far-away asteroid—but to take actions today to prevent them. By
producing reliable predictions about future events, science makes all of
our lives safer.
The need to make decisions that are based on reliable scientific predic-
tions has never been more urgent. With the human population topping
8 billion, the demands we make on the planet's finite resources cannot be
sustained and threaten the entire biosphere. Science can offer solutions
to the concerns we face, from avoiding the perils of climate change and
pandemics to addressing the ethical concerns raised by the development
of ever more powerful techniques for engineering genomes, including
our own. But as individuals, voters, and consumers, we all need to be
able to identify good science to make sound, well-reasoned decisions
on the issues that affect our personal lives—as well as to protect the
health, integrity, and very future of society as a whole.
A variety of institutions are doing their part to provide resources we can
all use to process challenging and conflicting torrents of information.
Social scientists, science historians, and experts in fields from psychology
to communications are conducting active research on science culture,
the spread of misinformation, and public trust in science. These efforts
12 Why Trust Science?

Figure 7 Scientific academies educate young scientists about proper scientific practice and also strive to protect the scientific
enterprise. (A) The US National Academies produced this guide, which can be downloaded for free, to describe what responsible
conduct in science looks like and to encourage good practice for scientists-in-training. (B) “Bad actors” exist in the scientific community
(as they do in any large group), and their activities can erode public trust. One such threat is represented by the recent proliferation
of for-profit journals and conferences that do not subscribe to the accepted principles of sound science. In 2022, a consortium
of the world’s science academies launched a project aimed at ferreting out these predatory entities and practices and providing
recommendations on how to identify and avoid them. This type of vigilance is key to rooting out scientific malpractice and keeping the
scientific enterprise healthy. (A: National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. 2009. On
Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research: Third Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://
doi.org/10.17226/12192. B: This work is copyright of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) and is licensed under Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The full report (in English) can be found at https://
www.interacademies.org/publication/predatory-practices-report-English.)

are guiding the development of tools we can use to determine which

information we can trust.
The University of California, Berkeley, offers an entire course aimed at
making students better equipped to think critically. “Every day we make
decisions that can and should be informed by science,” reads the course
description. “The problem is we don’t do it so well.” To minimize these
errors to which all humans are prone, the course reviews “what makes
science such an effective way of knowing, how both non-scientific think-
ing and scientific thinking can go awry, and how we can reason more
clearly and successfully as individuals, as members of groups, and as
citizens of a democracy.”
In the spring of 2023, the National Academy of Sciences, in partnership
with the Nobel Foundation, sponsored a three-day summit to discuss
how to stop misinformation from eroding public trust in science and sci-
entists. At this conference, Nobel Prize–winning scientists were joined
by leaders in information technology, policy makers, journalists, and
educators to explore solutions for curbing the spread of misinformation
 Essential Cell Biology 13

that weakens public deliberation and undermines trust in science and

in democracy itself. Underway is the development of a course, designed
for high school students around the globe, that has the same aim as this
“Why Trust Science” feature.
As textbook authors, we attempt to point out how the information we
present is the product of decades of discoveries. In the How We Know
panels in each chapter, Essential Cell Biology has long showcased how
scientists think, outlining the elegant logic and experimental approaches
behind some of the most fundamental concepts in cell biology. Now, in
the Sixth Edition of Essential Cell Biology, we introduce a new feature,
“Why Trust Science.” This brief primer on the process of science repre-
sents our response to an urgent need to reorient the teaching of science
at all levels, so as to enable students to discern the truth in a world
intensely bombarded by misinformation.
We sincerely hope that this discussion will broaden our readers’ appreci-
ation of how science leads to new knowledge—and thereby help them to
become more critical consumers of scientific content and better informed,
more confident thinkers and citizens.

ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS
• Science produces reliable knowledge as a broad community effort,
guided by a critical set of standards and values.
• Critical scientific values include an insistence on evidence, honesty,
a healthy dose of skepticism, and an openness to new interpretations
and ideas.
• Community standards that support these values include publishing
the experimental details needed for others to replicate or refute
one’s findings, randomized control trials, blinded analyses, statistical
validations, and peer review.
• A scientific consensus represents humanity’s best approach to the
truth, but it can never be certain, as it must be kept open to change
based on new evidence and ideas.
• A good scientific explanation makes logical and testable predictions
about the system being studied; thus, science not only accounts for
current observations, but also predicts what will happen in the future.
• Most scientific knowledge improves gradually, with refinements that
bring it ever closer to the truth.
• The pervasiveness of social media has vastly expanded the influence
of fake science, exposing us all to massive amounts of misinforma-
tion to tragic effect.
• A solid understanding of science as a community-driven process
can enable all students to discern the truth and become “competent
outsiders.”