• Question: what is science???

    Asked by seanp to Fiona, Jane, Joanna, Michelle, William on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michelle Murphy

      Michelle Murphy answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Hey
      I am guessing you study science and know the textbook definition but generally I see science as an excuse to be nosey and inquisitive about the world around us and trying to figure out how things work.

    • Photo: Jane Henry

      Jane Henry answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Science is a way of studying and finding out about things. Basically people have ideas about how things might work and go out and see if they can find evidence to support these ideas. This might involve all sorts of different approaches – experiments, surveys, case studies, epidemiological work, desk research. Often people have a particular hypothesis or idea that they want to test, but sometimes science can be exploratory and people are not sure what they will find. For example epidemiological studies have found unanticipated links between diet and longevity for example. One key thing that scientists do is listen to their data and change their perspective if their ideas are not supported by evidence.

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Great question! Well, science is knowledge. Science is understanding the universe, the world, and the people and organisms within in. Science is the repeated testing of an observation (like observing that people can only remember about 7 things at a time) and testing it to make sure the observation is stable (like testing people’s memory at different times of day). This will ensure that the observation is not just ‘something that randomly happened’. But most of all, science is discovery!

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Hi Sean, that is a tough question! It is the study of anything I think-how things work/why/where etc.

    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Science is the process of extending our knowledge about the way the world works by: first, understanding what is already known. Second, coming up with an interesting new question. Third, devising a fiendishly clever experiment to try and answer the interesting questions. Fourth, performing the experiment and trying to interpret the results in the context of what’s already known. And finally, telling the world what you’ve found and how it extends our understanding, and of what use it might be

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