• Question: What Was Science Exactualy Made For? :)

    Asked by liam123 to Meeks, Pete, Stephen, Steve, Tom on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Stephen Curry

      Stephen Curry answered on 13 Jun 2010:

      Science wasn’t exactly ‘made’ at a particular point in history. It is an activity that emerged as civilisation developed. To my mind, it is one of the greatest achievements of the human race. It is the systematic and rational (reasoned) investigation of the natural world.

      It is the best way we know of finding out about how the world works. And understanding the world has helped us to develop technologies that make our lives easier – and longer!

      Of course, science also creates problems – the atomic bomb would never have been made without the discoveries made in nuclear physics in the early part of the 20th Century. In that case, it is important for scientists and politicians to work together to make sure that society only makes good use of scientific discoveries. But that is very hard to do!

    • Photo: Tom Hartley

      Tom Hartley answered on 13 Jun 2010:

      This is a really interesting question which really requires a careful (and probably very long) answer. Some people (philosophers of science) spend their how lives trying to answer this kind of question. I’ll give you a short response now, and I’d like to discuss it more, so please feel free to get back to me in the comments. I think science is for finding good answers to questions about how nature works. By nature I mean more or less everything, ourselves, the world around us, life, the universe and everything. Scientists agree that good answers are consistent with evidence; we are open-minded, but we don’t believe something just because someone else says it’s true. We use experiments to get new evidence and help us choose between different possible answers. Just because we have what we think is a good answer, we don’t think we know it is true, for certain, so we keep looking for better answers. In this way we’ve built up a body of knowledge and theory which helps solve problems in the real world, for example medicine, technology and engineering depend on scientific ideas and measurements.

    • Photo: Steve Roser

      Steve Roser answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Over the years science has had a number of functions. It has been used as a way of thinking about the world, as a way of making money and a way of making war for example. It wasn’t really made for any of these in particular reasons, it just shiftf in emphasis at times. At the moment the government wants to link us all up with making ‘impact’ which really means money.

    • Photo: Marieke Navin

      Marieke Navin answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Well science wasn’t actually made! Science is the study of the Earth, the stars, the universe and how it all works. Humans started studying science hundreds of years ago. For a long time in England it was illegal to study science and it could cost you your life. We are so lucky today to be free to be able to challenge beliefs and test hypotheses using experiments.

Comments