In a world where technology plays an increasingly important role, and science is invoked almost as often as the Bible, few people understand what good science is. In principle, science is considered to be an objective knowledge system that proposes theories that can be supported or refuted by data. In fact, the very definition of science, as formulated by Karl Popper, is that it must be refutable. In this formulation, articles of faith, like most religious doctrines, are not science because they can neither be proved nor disproved. Science allows itself to be constantly updated by new information and empirical evidence. Science is also supposed to be open and democratic and in some sense, casteless, though many social scientists will argue that the high priests of science have as much influence over their faithful as any religious leader.

Many philosophers and historians of science have examined the way in which science operates and evolves.Thomas Kuhn, in his seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, laid out a scheme for the progress of science. He suggested that science remained constrained within the bounds of