Science is not a continuous process, but rather, one which advances in leaps and bounds, moving forward only to experience setbacks as unexpected, new information becomes available. Knowledge thus develops with conjectures and refutations as Karl R. Popper,1 the eminent philosopher of science, once said. As Thomas H. Huxley put it, the tragedy of scientific inquiry is that a beautiful hypothesis may be slain by an ugly fact2 Knowledge therefore is never stable; in fact, even the most elegant theory may be disclaimed by surprising new data. All our assumptions, theories and concepts must continually withstand falsification attempts through novel insights and unexpected findings, and the longer they survive, the better and more useful they are.
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机译：科学不是一个连续的过程，而是一个突飞猛进的过程，前进只是经历了意外的挫折，因为出现了新的信息。正如著名的科学哲学家卡尔·R·波普尔（Karl R. Popper）1所说，知识因此随着猜想和反驳而发展。正如托马斯·赫Hu黎（Thomas H. Huxley）所说，科学探究的悲剧在于，一个丑陋的事实可能会扼杀一个美丽的假设。实际上，即使是最优雅的理论也可能被令人惊讶的新数据所否认。我们所有的假设，理论和概念都必须通过新颖的见解和意想不到的发现不断经受住证伪的企图，并且它们生存的时间越长，它们就越好，越有用。
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