The Scientific Process Encompasses Numerous Viewpoints

We can get rid of outdated ways of looking at things, of fixed experience, of ingrained intellectual habits, only by constantly expanding our experience and continually comparing one idea with another in order to select the better one. Because systematic science is the result of constant comparison of innumerable materials and experiences, it cannot be produced by individual effort; it is a social product. Science has no nationality; it admits no prejudices. Scientific discoveries made in one country are soon applied in another. An untutored person in a tropic land could not be expected to know that water can freeze, and that at low temperatures other liquids can become solid; but as he becomes familiar with science, he can comprehend these phenomena. Because science deals with so many materials and phenomena, and because the results of scientific investigation can be communicated and disseminated, people can break old intellectual habits and discard outmoded concepts even when they are not in position to make their own direct observations.