Dr.
Tariq Khan
Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences (Room 103)
The University of Haripur
PhD, University of Peshawar
M.Phil, The University of Nottingham, England
Fellowship, The University of Twente,
The Netherlands
What Is Science?
What is Science?
The word “science” probably brings to mind
many different pictures:
• A fat textbook
• White lab coats and microscopes
• An astronomer peering through a telescope
• A naturalist in the rainforest
What is Science?
• Einstein’s equations scribbled on a
chalkboard
• The launch of the space shuttle
• Bubbling beakers ….
All of those images reflect some aspect
of science, but none of them provides a
full picture because science has so many
facets:
Science is both a body of knowledge and a process
In school, science may sometimes seem like a
collection of isolated and static facts listed in a
textbook
but that’s only a small part of the story.
Just as importantly, science is also a process of
discovery that allows us to link isolated facts
into coherent and comprehensive
understandings of the natural world.
Science is exciting
Science is a way of discovering
what’s in the universe
how those things work today
how they worked in the past
how they are likely to work in the future.
Scientists are motivated by the thrill of seeing or figuring out
something that no one has before.
Science is useful
The knowledge generated by science is
powerful and reliable.
It can be used to
develop new technologies,
treat diseases
deal with many other sorts of problems.
Science is ongoing
Science is continually refining and expanding our
knowledge of the universe, and as it does
it leads to new questions for future investigation
Science will never be “finished.”
Science is a global human endeavor
People all over the world participate in the
process of science.
And you can too!
Discovery: The spark for science
“aha!” moments may not happen frequently, but
they are often experiences that drive science and
scientists.
For a scientist, every day holds the possibility of
discovery
coming up with a brand new idea or of observing
something that no one has ever seen before. Vast
bodies of knowledge have yet to be built and
many of the most basic questions about the
universe have yet to be answered:
Discovery: The spark for science
• Vast bodies of knowledge have yet to be built
and many of the most basic questions about
the universe have yet to be answered
Discovery: The spark for science
•What causes gravity?
•How do tectonic plates move around on Earth’s
surface?
•How do our brains store memories?
•How do water molecules interact with each other?
We don’t know the complete answers to these and
an overwhelming number of other questions, but
the prospect of answering them beckons science
forward.
EVERYDAY SCIENCE QUESTIONS
Scientific questions can seem complex (e.g., what
chemical reactions allow cells to break the bonds
in sugar molecules), but they don’t have to be.
You’ve probably posed many perfectly valid
scientific questions yourself: like
• how can airplanes fly,
• why do cakes rise in the oven,
• why do apples turn brown once they’re cut?
EVERYDAY SCIENCE QUESTIONS
You can discover the answers to many of these
“everyday” science questions in your local
library\
but for others, science may not have the answers
yet
answering such questions can lead to astonishing
new discoveries.
EVERYDAY SCIENCE QUESTIONS
For example, we still don’t know much about
how your brain remembers to buy milk at
the grocery store.
Just as we’re motivated to answer
questions about our everyday experiences,
scientists confront such questions at all
scales, including questions about the very
nature of the universe.
The process of scientific discovery is not limited to
professional scientists working in labs.
The everyday experience of deducing that
your car won’t start because of a bad fuel pump
figuring out that the centipedes in your backyard
prefer shady rocks shares
fundamental similarities with classically scientific
discoveries like
working out DNA’s double helix.
These activities all involve making observations
and analyzing evidence
they all provide the satisfaction of finding an
answer that makes sense of all the facts.
In fact, some psychologists argue that the way
individual humans learn (especially as children)
bears a lot of similarity to the progress of science
both involve making observations, considering
evidence, testing ideas, and holding on to those
that work.
