What is truth? Winston Churchill once said, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” I believe that there is eternal truth in the world. Thoughts and ideas might be challenged, but there is always truth behind them. However, it might be hard to accept the truth. Just as Churchill said, what we now believe is truth might have been attacked and rejected by the society before. In the field of science, the truth gradually gains its acceptance from the world after being challenged.
Take the example of Nicolaus Copernicus, a mathematician and astronomer who proposed that the sun was stationary in the center of the universe and the earth revolved around it. Disturbed by the failure of Ptolemy's geocentric model of the universe, Copernicus decided that he could achieve his goal only through a heliocentric model. He thereby created a concept of a universe in which the distances of the planets from the sun bore a direct relationship to the size of their orbits. Although now we all believe the heliocentric theory to be true, at the time his idea was very controversial. In addition to drawing criticism from scholars, Copernicus's theories incensed the Roman Catholic Church; his model was considered heretical because it was contrary to the Church’s teachings. His theory was not accepted by the public until other scientists like Galileo provided more evidence later. The Church ultimately banned his publication De revolutionibus posthumously, and the book remained on the list of forbidden reading material for nearly three centuries thereafter. Nevertheless, now Copernicus’ theory is now considered as the universal truth, and Copernicus comes to be seen as the initiator of the Scientific Revolution.
Galileo Galilei, as mentioned above, also challenged the common belief at his time by supporting the heliocentric theory. He made vital improvements to the telescopes so that he discovered that Venus and Jupiter did not rotate around Earth. His observations were crucial to support the heliocentric theory. In addition, one of the most famous experiments in the world was Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment. He had dropped two balls of different masses from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that their time of descent was independent of their mass.Via this method, he supposedly discovered that the objects fell with the same acceleration, proving his prediction true, while at the same time disproving the prevailing Aristotle's theory of gravity. Thanks to Galileo, now we all know that heavier objects do not fall any faster than lighter ones. This truth was challenged, but is now widely accepted.
However, not all the hypotheses are accepted as truth like heliocentric theory and the rules of free fall. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is still disputed among scientists. It is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Although it is not widely accepted by the public, most criticisms and denials of evolution have come from religious sources. There are some religious beliefs which reject evolutionary explanations in favor of creationism, the belief that a deity supernaturally created the world largely in its current form. Still, evolutionary theory is not yet completely proved by scientists. However, I believe that it has led us closer to the truth and one day we will figure out what the truth really is, whether or not it matches the evolutionary theory.
All in all, the scientists have made great efforts to find the universal and eternal truth. Although the truth might be hidden away, attacked, or rejected, one day it will be accepted and last forever.
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