For example, the number of cigarettes smoked and probability of suffering lung cancer might both be caused by other, unidentified variables, such as stress, or poor office or home air quality. Possibly, the most difficult facet of good science for nonpractitioners to master is that good science proceeds by disproving ideas. But because we disprove null hypotheses, every prevailing idea is based on tentative acceptance. As facts pile up and theory organizes those facts, that acceptance becomes less and less tentative, but it can never be absolute because new ideas, technologies, and perspectives may modify the available facts and theories. Society and Science.
Society views science in three ways.
Facts are confirmed, repeatable, and therefore shared observations that need to be explained, and theory organizes the facts into a coherent, explanatory concept. Third, science in our society has come to have a quality of infallibility attached to it. However, scientists vary in the proficiency with which they practice their craft. Those who do it best combine adherence to the four standards with imagination, leading to new insight into how objective reality is organized. Such ideas are theories only if they organize a spectrum of facts into a coherent whole.