What Is Science?

[Sean Nash]

Use the thread below to engage in reflection about topics that were discussed in class last week. Discuss any "aha's" you had during our readings and or discussions. What did you learn? What finally became clear in your head? What surprised you? What might still be confusing?

Feel free to direct your post to one or more of the above questions, or try to frame your comments around one or both of the following "big ideas" from class...

What is science?
-and/or-
The role of questions and hypotheses in science.

Remember to best text-based in your responses when and where appropriate.

In addition, be sure to include information from our class reading today. You can find this information here.

[Blayr Bolton]

I keep reading more about people mentioning that science is limited to the study of the physical universe, and it's something that I need to grasp. Like you did! So, good point in mentioning that!

Also, when saying that you don't think you really get science, I think it would help if you read everyone else's comments on the subject! I've read through a few, and it seems that all of us have come through different aspects of what science really is and I think for the most part we all did pretty good at explaining this. So, hopefully that can help you out. :)

[Miranda Lynn Stanton]

Science is discovering how things worked in the past, now and in the future. Science will help discover ways to cure diseases and other kinds of sicknesses. Science leads to new questions everyday and that will help for future cures. There is no order in figuring out ways. You sometimes have to go back and try something different.

[Sean Grinstead]

this is my thought on the class discussion on science... the dictionary definition of science is "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." when i think of science i think of it as the study of the world around us through an unbiased way of experimenting and studying through the scientific method. the book says that the scientific method is a systematic way to collect data without bias. My definition is an organized way to collect data in an experiment without bias.
you use a hypothesis to have something for the experiment to answer. if there was no hypothesis then the experiment wouldn't have a question to answer, so you have to base your experiment off of this question or hypothesis.
so in the end, science is just a way for people to answer questions about the world without their opinion , simply put.

[james d green]

what i got from Mrs. Nash's 'here' post was that science is not like any other topic, you really have to dig like a archeologist (aka: type of scientist) and you have to study study study probably more than math or social studies or even P.E.!!! however you have to jump through many loops to find out exactly what it is you are wanting to find out like to tell whether or not its gonna rain you cant just step outside in the dark and tell. you have to measure humidity and and a whole bunch of mambo jambo or you can cheat and look at your barometer. My point is that science is much more complex in many different situations!

[Terra Younger]

I was nonexistent last class period... So sadly, I missed out on the class discussion. However, I did get the reading so I'm just going to post over that :)

"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking" -Albert Einstein. Is the opening quote to the excerpt. To me this is basically stating that everyone can do science... Science is simple, yet extremely complex.

"A scientist is a detective and nature is filled with mysteries." If there is someone willing to test something or curious as to why something happens they're a scientist; "so easy a cave man can do it."

Science is something that can be tested... Questions that by experiment can be answered. [Scientific Method] A way of approaching an answer, hypothesis to come to a conclusion. A hypotheses are formulated for one reason; to be rejected. Once your hypothesis is "rejected" formulate another one for testing... Imagine what else is possible. Science is never ending.

"There is no such thing as proof in science. There is only disproof." This quote struck me. Science is never proven. Hmm :) "Science never proves anything." ...

[Ally S]

What suprised me about class last week was when Mr. Nash said that there is no such thing as "proof."
It also made me wonder how he proved that to be true.
Hmmm...
I didn't quite understand it. And I still don't. People can prove things to be false, or prove things to be true.

Can I get a helping hand here?


When we discussed, "what is science," I had it confused with biology, and wrote down that it was the study of life on our group's huge piece o' paper. In a way (at least in my thinking), it kind of is the study of life. But that's only half of it. Science also studies non-living things, and solves problems or answers questions. And with the scientific method, we've made the steps to answering questions a little bit easier. Also, I'm not sure what natureofscience means, but it sure does sound like NATURE OF SCIENCE. :)
Of course, with a little break in between the words, in case you need to breathe.
Science is a big old bundle of so much. It contains so much information, it has to be hard to write it all down. It's really perplexing, because there is so much to look at, so much to discover. And not everything will be discovered. There are new things happening every day, and keeping on top of it all would be a huge challenge.

It's good to question things in our world so we can solve problems that really need to be solved. Questioning things gives you a good sense of curiosity; you want to find out more by asking questions and challenging things. By using the scientific method, you can think up your own answer, and test to see if it works. You don't have to stick to just one possibility, either. It's like the old saying goes:

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

You can always re-test and re-test a different hypothesis if the first answer fails. Epically.

[Hannah Rush]

Sorry for such a delay in this discussion. Gotta love when your computer smokes ;)

"There is no such thing as proof"- Wow. Since i was little, I've always been the one to argue an issue and say, "I want proof." Not going to lie, this has kind of scarred me. :P You NEVER PROVE something. You "support" it. On page 6, "Whenever you design an experiment to test a hypothesis, try to think of the experiment that would disprove it. If you fail to disprove it, you can infer (But never absolutely prove) that your hypothesis was correct." I think this is a very strong statement. Since we were little, we've been told to "prove" our hypothesis was supported in our experiment. I guess I never really sat back and thought about the fact that it could be disproved by conducting a different experiment. I am definitely having an "ah ha" moment :)

In class on Friday, we drew posters about what we thought science was. CHA CHA SUCKS AND IS NOT A GOOD RESOURCE (by the way) :) Science is defined as "a process- or a way of thinking about problems and a methodology for solving problems" in the reading we had. Our groups had a lot of the same ideas whenever we wrote down what we thought it was. There were even some interesting pictures to go along with our discussion. =) Taylor did a great job of showing us the picture of the scientist. They demonstrated a picture that most people imagine when thinking about a "scientist". The white lab coat, goggles, the flasks, and the crazy hair. it was all accurate to what we have in our head. Nash CLEARLY explained that that is NOT was ALL scientists look like. "Many of you guys will be surprised to know that scientists dress that same as you and me. Do I even own a lab coat?" This caught a lot of people's attention, or at least I know it got mine.

I still find some things about science confusing. The "big bang theory" and the bible say two different things. I guess this is where religion gets in the way. Is it okay to not believe this? ( didn't know how to word that) Pangea? there are so many things that I have a hard time believing in science because of my religion. We talked about the difference in class. Theology and Science are two totally different subjects, but sometimes I feel like Theology interferes with Science.

The Scientific Method was also discussed today in class. The scientific method is the way in which you conduct an experiment. Normally you have to ask questions first and come up with a problem, then make a hypothesis. "All science advances by the rejection of a hypothesis." p.3 This is the first class where it has been OKAY TO HAVE A HYPOTHESIS REJECTED. I like this. It allows me to be wrong, where as in most classes, this was definitely not the case. When we were younger, we had to deal with teachers that would go as far as deducting letter grades for a rejected hypothesis. I love that this book states that it is okay. I think this makes science more fun. It allows you to try new experiments and come up with new ideas.

Oh yeah...and if I wasn't clear... "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PROOF" =)

[Sean Grinstead]

I think that science had many different parts. the ethhod, and often important parts.and all of these main parts mixed together to make one main goal and it all comes from the scientific method, the hypothesis, and the experiment
One very improtant part is an educated guess. if you don't have a hypothesis the dictionary definition is the ground work of an experiment. the reason for the hypothesis is to answer a question threw trial and error. I think that the hypothesis is important because, if you don't have a hypothesis then you dont have a question for your experiment to answer. I think that a hypothesis is the most important part of the experiment.
Another important thing is the experiment. An Experiment is the sudy of the hypothesis, figuring out if it is true or not. the experiment is important beacause if you dont study it, then you can't answer the all important hypothesis question. If you cant answer the hypothesis , then you can't make a claim, if you cant make a claim then there is no reason to do any of it because the reason for science is to expand your knowledge of a subject.
All of thes Boild down to the goal of science. What is it? It isn't one certain thing , but it depends on the scientist and what is being reseached. I think that the overall goal of all scientist is to expand the knowledge of the subject being studied