• Question: what is the point of science

    Asked by ilovejoy to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 21 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by jimmybob13.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      So some ideas:
      1) It’s interesting to know what’s happening in the world around us. People are curious – children always ask “why”, and adults still like learning things.
      2) Science helps us make new technology, which improves our lives. We can go to distant places, cure diseases, make it easier to do everyday tasks.
      3) I get paid to do science, so doing science means I can pay my rent and buy food. 🙂

    • Photo: Robert Woolfson

      Robert Woolfson answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      For me, the point of science is to try and make sense of the world around us. Like Sam said, curiosity is important and science is an excellent way to satisfy natural curiosity by studying and understanding small parts of the world around while also doing something that may be helpful to society in general.

    • Photo: Kate Husband

      Kate Husband answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      I think humans are generally curious and would like to know the answer. It also helps drive technology forward – by that I mean we invent stuff along the way in order to do science which are really useful – like the internet or computer!

    • Photo: Matthew Pankhurst

      Matthew Pankhurst answered on 22 Jun 2013:

      To know things. For sure. Or at least to 99.5% confidence… 🙂 Science is a way of proving things are true or false. By working out what things are true or false we can have learn about the way things really are, which means we are taken by surprise in nasty ways a lot less than our ancestors (“whoops that plant with the delicious looking berries is poisonous – oh well I’m dead. If I’d known that I wouldn’t have eaten it”). We evolved by figuring things out with our brains – and really this is what science is – figuring things out. So really the point of science is the same as the point of being human… I realise that last bit doesn’t directly answer your question but it was deliberate….!

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