• Question: why is there science in the world and when did it begin?

    Asked by russia to Davie, Gemma, James P, James V, Nuala on 26 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: James Pope

      James Pope answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Hi russia,

      As can be seen in the development of the human race, from living in caves and roaming around the plains of Africa, we have developed into using tools and living in villages in hosues we built. We always keep developing these skills, and the tools we use making them more and more complex, so I guess science began when the first human invented a way of starting a fire for themselves (and not just relying on nature to provide it!).

      Science in the way we know it I think began in Ancient China and Ancient Greece, they had lots of people who came up with principles that guided us for thousends of years, some still do today. The mostb recent increases in science came from the UK, especially Scotland about 200 years ago, and to the present day, some key inventions such as the Computer, began in the UK and even today, our small island produces as many if not more of the worlds best scientists and best young scientists than the USA or China or Europe. We are pretty awesome at science these days, Britain changed the world in the industrial revolution and we continue to do so today!

    • Photo: Nuala Carson

      Nuala Carson answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Hey russia,

      I really don’t know where to begin with this one! I think technically science was always but we only started thinking about it properly at a point in time. I mean there was always a natural human life cycle (conception, birth, growth, death) but at some point some one some where though ‘Hold on a second, there is a link here!’ and they started to study it.

      Tha’ts the best i can do i’m afraid!

    • Photo: James Verdon

      James Verdon answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Hi russia,
      I think human have it in their nature to think scientifically. Science is about finding more about the way everything works. So, we have always noticed patterns and tried to find the underlying reasons why. Obviously, we used to get the reasons wrong a lot – i.e. it’s rained a lot this year. Why? Because the rain god is displeased!

      While the Ancient Greeks developed a lot of rational and natural philosophy, a lot of people trace the beginning of true scientific thought to an Englishman called Francis Bacon, who lived in the 16th/17th Century.

      Bacon described the way that we should go about finding out about the world. He said that we should not come in with any preconceived ideas based on philosophy, religion or political interest. Instead, we should begin by performing experiments and making observations relevant to the thing we are interested in. We should then form hypotheses from these data. Finally, when a hypothesis has been developed, it should be rigorously tested by further experiments. If a hypothesis cannot match experiments, it cannot be considered to be true.

      This is the basis of how science still works today – we don’t come in we preconceived ideas about what a result should be: you perform experiments to collect data, and base hypotheses on the data. Once hypotheses have been developed, they should be rigorously tested with more experiments and observations. Only hypotheses that have survived rigorous exposure to experimental data become widely established theories that are accepted by the scientific community.

      Bacon was hugely influential amongst European scientists. Especially Isaac Newton, one of the most famous scientists. So while humans have always been interested in finding out about the way the world works – we are naturally curious – I’d say that modern science began with Francis Bacon.

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