Firstly, to science!

The inspiration for this particular post is two-fold. I'd been intending to write something along these lines for a while, but hadn't so far gotten around to it. Considering Easter has just come and gone, and there was, shall we say an 'enthusiastic', debate on a particular TV show last night it has prompted me to actually do it.
Writing about the scientific process, and science as a 'new religion' I think is a good starting point for this particular blog. So here we go!

First and foremost, science is a process. It is a methodology used to uncover information about the world around us, and to discover how the systems within that world function and interact with one another. It is not about proving things to be true, or about dogma (usually - although in some disciplines it does sneak in with some theories) but instead is about experimentation and discovery of the most plausible explanation available at the time, and the ability to switch to an alternative and better explanation should one ever arise.
In this, is the core of the power of science.
Because of the way science functions, better explanations for phenomena are always sought. Dogma rarely takes hold, and if there is insufficient evidence to support them, theories do not progress very far. Even widely accepted theories, even those strongly supported over such a long period of time as to be called the 'laws' of science, are continually being put to the test. E=MC(squared), Einstein's famous equation used to explain the relationship between mass, energy and the speed of light (in a vacuum at least) is now again under scrutiny, as are the theories of gravity (well, talk to any quantum physicist about that one), evolution by natural selection (microbiologists, geneticists etc) and Netwon's Laws (those quantum physicists again). That is not to say those laws are now seen as 'untrue' and will be scrapped - far from it. The beauty of science is to continually progress such laws, adjusting them accordingly as new knowledge is gained.
Those who state science is the new religion have no understanding of what either 'science' or 'religion' actually mean, nor what they stand for. Equally, those who boldly state that 'science will eventually answer all our questions' also do not understand the scientific process, nor how it functions within our society. These are two reasons I refuse to give science the capital S that many do (aside of course, from when it is at the beginning of the sentence).

Take, for example, a simple experiment. We're growing tomatoes, and want to know if we add fertiliser twice as often, if they'll grow better/produce more fruit (bear with me, I am a botanist and this is the first appearance of plants in this blog!).
The scientifically designed experiment you'd use, would be to have two 'treatments'. One you could give lots of fertiliser to, and the other none (or much less - termed a 'control'). Then, once they have fruited for whatever length of time you choose, count or weigh the produce and compare the two. It might be expected that the one with more plant-food did better, and for the sake of this example let us say that this is indeed the case.
The purpose of science, however, is not to simply find out whether things are 'true' or not, but also to attempt to explain why they are so. In the case of the tomatoes, the first thought you would have would be that they extra nutrients allowed the plants to produce more fruit. However this may not be the actual effect the nutrients had. There could be many other factors that accounted for this extra fruit, and these are known as variables.
Perhaps the pots the tomatoes were planted in were placed in patchy light? If those with the higher nutrient treatment happened to have more light (due to chance) than the others, this, rather than the nutrient levels, may explain their increased fruit set. If they had more light, they'd also have likely been exposed to higher temperatures, as it gets hot in the sun. Or it could be something else - perhaps the extra nutrients allowed them to grow more roots, take up more water and then produce more fruit? Or perhaps it was some other chemical or biological process, such as the particular blend of those extra nutrients allowing a particular beneficial microbe to grow in the soil with the plant, and hence increase the fruit production. Or the presence of the fertiliser may have changed the pH level of the soil, and allowed previously inaccessible nutrient sources to be 'unlocked' for the plant by changing them to a different form. Any one of these explanations could tell us why higher nutrients caused a greater fruit set, and each could have it's own experiment set up to investigate it. Or, better yet, the scientist would have had some ideas as to why nutrients would work before they started, and would have built tests for some of these factors into the original experiment (known as 'controlled' variables).

So from this terrifically simple example, you can see how complicated science can get. Without the question of 'why' as well as 'does', we could easily conclude that the additional fertiliser works because fertiliser is magic, and our knowledge of the system would barely increase at all. The point of this example is to illustrate one of my favourite aspects of science. Think of it, if you will, as the mythical beast, a hydra.
Chop off one head, or answer one question, and another two will appear in it's place.
This is the fundamental reason that science can never answer all our questions. But in the past few centuries, and certainly within the last one, our scientific endeavour has brought us so very far. Our knowledge base is rapidly increasing, and the rate of new advancements in science is also accelerating. Having said all of this, I don't see our hydra situation as a problem. As our knowledge increases, so does our want to learn. Learning is good for us, if we didn't learn we would still be monkeys sitting around in trees in Africa (well, there is another contested theory - the 'out of Africa' theory). And yes, I know monkeys can and do learn but you know what I mean.


In a nutshell, science is a remarkable process by which we learn about the world around us. It is not some god worthy of worship, nor does it attempt to be. It is a tool we use to understand the universe we live in, and hopefully one that will allow us to improve our lives and the lives of those to come.