The tricky question of "what is science?"

Linking here to a third-hand blog post about how scientists often can't define terms like "theory" and "law." No wonder the media gets them mixed up! Part of the problem though is that scientists don't study how they do science, they just do it. Studying how science is done would be part of epistemology (the study of how we know things), which is part of philosophy. It's also in the realm of science education - but unfortunately science educators also don't know how science works... *grumble* No wonder things like ID and the Moon Hoax have managed to make such inroads into our culture!

Famous Scientists

I was amused to stumble across the website Famous Scientsts while doing Google Image Labeler. They've got mini-bios and photos of some 20 scientists, and I was glad to see there's two women in the list.

Science questions

On another blog a few interesting questions were asked of scientists by a school board member. My responses are below. I'd love to see others' thoughts, whether responses to the original questions, or what you think of mine.

1. What or who sparked your interest in science?
If I had to say a person, it'd be my Dad - an electrical engineer who encouraged me to take VCRs apart and always told me I could do anything I wanted to do. If I had to say an event, it was going to an observatory in CT (I grew up in NYC) at age 12 and seeing Saturn through a telescope.

But more realistically, it was a process that took years throughout high school in which I realized that I enjoyed it and was good at it. I also enjoyed Latin and Art, but I wasn't as good at them (and there's no money in the fields). I was also good at Math but didn't enjoy it. It was when I took Physics that every thing clicked - I finally understood why Math had been invented.

2. What does the word "science" mean to you?
a) A process of inquiry in which one asks questions and gathers physical evidence to attempt to find an answer based in physical reality. Sometimes the Scientific Method is used, but while it is the most famous description of the process, it is not the only one.
b) A set of "facts" about the physical universe, which are frequently updated as humanity learns more.

3. What scientific skills do you most often use in your work?
In the spirit of full disclosure, I am currently a community college faculty member, not a research scientist, however these skills come to me through my scientific background. The most important skill I have is to take a set of isolated facts, internalize and process them, and recombine them into a coherent picture of reality that I can then communicate to others. Communication skills are high on my list - I have often been praised for my writing ability and my attention to detail, in addition to oral communication (of course, as a teacher).

4. What do you think makes a good science teacher?
Nowadays K-12 science teachers need to have excellent critical thinking skills and be able to distinguish between pseudoscience (such as astrology, creationism/ID, mercury/autism, Moon Hoax conspiracy theory) and actual science (the real things being astronomy, evolution, vaccinations, space exploration).

5. Do you think children have enough science preparation for today's world?
No. Science standards are being continually eroded through the introduction of deceptive "teach the controversy" rules (when there isn't any controversy at all in the scientific subject). Students are encouraged to have poor critical thinking skills, and to alternately fear and mock science and scientific thought. I especially worry about the fate of girls in science - middle school is where we tend to lose them to social pressures.

6. If there was one science concept that you could ensure all children learn, what would it be?
Content: Evolution. (And I'm a physicist.) Without understanding evolution, there's no way they can understand humanity, let alone medicine.
Process: Critical Thinking.
Second choice on content would be alternative energy sources and conservationism in general - and that's also interdisciplinary.

7. What are some of teh science trends you predict for the future?
* International sanctions against the US for our carbon emissions - oops, that's political!
* The continued decoding of the genome will lead to leaps and bounds in medicine.
* The definition of "planet" will be revised yet again when the International Astronomical Union meets next in 2009. The New Horizons mission to Pluto and other Kuiper Belt Objects will reach Pluto in 2015 and I'm not sure when after that it will get to other Kuiper Belt Objects. Expect Pluto and the definition of planet to stay in the news until at least 2020.

8. What can teachers do to encourage more women/minorities to consider science careers?
* Bring in women scientists to give speeches
* Hang posters of women scientists in classrooms/halls
* Feature women scientists in class, such as Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, and the Harvard College Observatory women.
* Start after school activities targeting girls in science - many colleges and universities run these programs partnering with area K-12 schools, and organizations such as the NSF and NIH offer grants to both K-12 schools and higher ed organizations for them.
* Hire and support teachers and administrators who will aggressively pursue and follow through such grants and collaborations.
* Hire teachers with both education and science backgrounds - either without the other won't do as much good as having both.

Hawking survives Vomit Comet

That is such a relief. He did 8 of the free-fall parabolas, grinning the whole time. His motivation? Not just release from his everyday hum-drum life of a preeminent mathematician / theoretical physicist at Cambridge University, probably not even release from his wheelchair and MS, but to "encourage public interest in space". Life on Earth he says, is at risk from global warming and other threats, and "the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."

War on Scientists?

33 or more are dead in a massacure in an Engineering building at Virginia Tech. The dead included 3 Engineering professors, and two language instructors. And this afternoon another gunman killed a hostage and himself - this time in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

To heck with it being a war on celebrities and arguing for and against gun control, I want to know why all these people cracking up are picking scientists?! Maybe the IDers are behind it all, it's a right-wing conspiracy!

I do hope everyone realizes I'm making light of serious situations to try and defuse them and don't really believe half of what I said above...