Interested in the “scientific process?” Read this.

Some good, incisive thinking into one of the eternal questions, phrased over and over again in so many venues as: what is real, or what is truth?

For example, as you point out, do things really have to be either true or false? Well, what about the mysterious world of subatomic physics?

Subatomic particles, according to my limited understanding of such things, can both exist and not exist at the same time, be in two different places simultaneously, and be both a particle and a wave at the same time. It is a world, if we can call it that, which makes Alice's Wonderland in comparison look like a sane and sober place indeed. Of course in the world of subatomic physics there is also always the account of Schrodinger's cat, an account which after many years is still alive and well. Or, perhaps I should say, both alive and not alive and well and not well.

In any case, in the search for truth I do believe there is one guiding principle that we must adhere to, one that can always serve as our benchmark for progress made in this search: it is the principle presented in a literary context by writer Arthur Conan Doyle, and put into the mouth of his famous creation Sherlock Holmes: "When all else has been eliminated, whatever remains, however unlikely it may seem, must be the truth."

But sometimes this is easier said than done. For example, I once had the following thought about confronting the truth that may well have happened once, but which we never heard about, and the nature of the event explains why that is so.

That is, suppose that around the year 1900 there was a distinguished physicist, let's call him Professor X, perhaps a professor at one of the prominent German universities of that era, and a contemporary of Albert Einstein. Say that he, like Einstein, also was brilliant, and was also capable of making great discoveries, as Einstein eventually did. Say that Professor X at that time was working diligently in his office trying to advance the frontiers of physics, perhaps even knowing about his colleague Einstein, and possibly even feeling a bit competitive with him, to make the next big discovery in physics.

So one day Professor X is sitting at his desk and he comes up with a series of physics equations that he has just mathematically derived. So he says to himself "Well, these equations look good, I'm sure the calculations that I have done to get them are correct, maybe I've got something here. But wait! No, this can't be right! These equations are predicting that as objects approach the speed of light they become more massive! They're also saying that as a traveler approaches the speed of light time slows down for him relative to the time for non-travelers! Why that's absurd! That can't possibly be right! Newton never said anything like that! And if Newton's equations don't predict it, then it can't possibly be true! The only explanation is that there is an error somewhere in these equations, yes, that's it, an error, and because of that the equations are predicting such nonsense! Certainly I could never publish such erroneous equations as these that predict such absurdities! Why, I would be a laughingstock!"

So Professor X laboriously went looking for the errors that weren't there, while his colleague Einstein went on to publish the very same equations and in the process changed the world. Professor X, as brilliant as he was, just couldn't grasp the principle that, had he eliminated all the other possibilities, then those equations that he had, as non-intuitive as they were, really were the truth.

And the result was, as noted, that we never heard about Professor X because he couldn't make that leap. He could have been what Einstein became, but understanding the fundamental nature of what truth really is was beyond him.

So perhaps there really is at least one principle we can rely on in the search for truth: namely, that once all else has been eliminated, whatever remains, really is, the truth.

Interesting OP!

The biggest issue I have with the scientific process is that in today's culture much of it has become politicized and data manipulated to support a preconceived result. This doesn't happen to a great extent in the medical field as it does in the social sciences, but we have to be aware that it does occur far too often.
The key is that any science experiment must be repeatable by others, especially by those who disagree with the original results.