The word “logic” is used quite hastily nowadays. We tend to assign it to almost everything we think. We often blame others that they’re logically mistaken if they don’t think like us. Mathematically speaking, “logic” is a very well-defined area. If B is derived from A and A is true, then B is true. This is logic. There are no mistakes in math logic, same as there are no mistakes in “1 plus 1 equals 2”.

In day-to-day terms we often use “logic” to describe our own subjective “reason” or “common sense”. But here comes one of the great principles of the modern scientific method: Don’t always believe your own common sense!

One of the first to phrase this wonderful principle was Ibn al-Haytham (a.k.a. Alhazen) who lived in the Middle East some thousand years ago. As one of the pioneers of the scientific method, he said that “As seekers of the truth we must also suspect and question our own ideas as we perform our investigations, to avoid falling into prejudice or careless thinking.”

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This phenomenon is reflected in much of our intuitive attitude towards modern scientific discoveries: How come a Jumbo Jet weighing hundreds of tons can lean on air? How can it be that two twins will become different in age due to effects of the theory of relativity? No way have humans been derived from fish! Surely things cannot be created spontaneously by themselves from nothing! And so on.

Thus, the difference between a “bad scientist” and a “good scientist” is that the latter struggles to listen to evidence more than to his or her internal reason. Even if sometimes they may be in conflict.