Thinking About: Science

I have been fascinated with Science and Technology since at least my early teens. Despite this I am not a Scientist. Most of my formal, as well as my informal, education since age 18 has been in the Humanities.

I think this is for several reasons. In my late teens I kind of hit a brick wall with Mathematics. I just sort of turned-off or even tuned-out. Funnily in my early teens I loved (and I’m not exaggerating here) Quadratic Equations and could do a lot of them in my head which exasperated my Maths teachers who had to constantly remind me to show my working out. Stupidly, looking back on it, I followed the equations into 6th Form and was surprised to find that I just didn’t ‘get it’ any more. About 6 months in I literally gave up on Maths and these days, whenever I see a page of equations, my mind just freezes. Needless to say pursuing almost any science subject at University at that point became pretty moot. Luckily I had found another passion – History. I became interested in people and why they do what they do and how all of that produced the world we live in. Unfortunately my academic future in History didn’t quite work out either so I ended up studying Social Ethics.

I never did lose my interest in science of course. The fires were probably regularly fanned by all the SF I was reading (as they still are) as well as the occasional popular science book I managed to fit in between the aliens and the starships. Probably by my early 20’s I figured that I knew enough of the basics not to feel the need to investigate much further. I did read a few books by Dawkins which fired my scientific imagination to new heights but any other delving into the scientific world have been both fairly random and rather shallow.

I do, however, feel at least a basic understanding and appreciation of science is important (actually vital) to an understanding of the world around us and the universe beyond that. Scientific investigation is by far the best way to discover much of what we need to know to survive and prosper in the coming centuries. Without it we are lost in a chaotic world were seemingly unpredictable - or even actively capricious - elements can do us harm. Of course science is not the only form of knowledge worthy of its name and not everything responds to scientific enquiry. Outside of science we have art, music and literature. We also have history and philosophy to help us understand who we are and were we came from. But not all forms of enquiry are equally valid. If science tells us that the Earth is 4.5 Billion years old (for example) and other, more traditional, sources tell us that it is considerably less then it is towards science that I look to give the definitive answer. Science can explain things and predict new occurrences because it understands the fundamentals of things. Religion often tells a good tale but cannot tell us much about the world in which we live. Before the advent of science whatever progress society was capable of was glacial. Whilst today such advances in our knowledge exceed the capacity of many to comprehend and show little sign of slowing. Such advances would be impossible without scientific understanding. Science made the world it is today and will mould the future in ways we have yet to envisage (unless you read lots of SF). To understand things you really need science. QED.