• Question: do you think science is the most important thing in the world

    Asked by 09crumptonpop to Zoe, Sharon, Louise, Jon, Daniel on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by nidhi6.
    • Photo: Jon Copley

      Jon Copley answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      In the modern human world, I’d say yes – because science gives us a way to understand the world around us that we’ve never had before. Before science, if people wanted for example to explain the dots of light that they could see in the night sky, they just made up stories. But science gives us a way to learn about the world by testing our ideas, and in so doing develop our understanding further.

      As a result, science has certainly shaped our history more than any other human enterprise in the past few centuries. And what we’ve learned about our world through science in that short time – just a few people’s lifetimes – is astounding. Three hundred years ago, people really had no notion about atoms, or how the cells in our bodies work, and couldn’t imagine sending someone to the Moon, or into the ocean depths.

      Thanks to science, we’ve come such a long way in a short time that I don’t think we’ve really got our heads around what it has taught us about the world yet. That may be why some people are suspicious about science.

      But that’s the “human” world. Do I think science is the most important thing in the “natural” world? I can only say “maybe” – only time will tell. Our species is actually pretty insignificant in the big scheme of things. Our planet is 4.5 billion years old, and we’ve only been around for a few hundred thousand years (and only had “science” for a few centuries). It could be that our species will eventually go extinct, like other species, and all we have achieved with science will disappear.

      Our Sun is very gradually getting hotter, and in a billion years it will be so hot that it boils all the oceans on Earth (long before it expands to become a Red Giant star, which will take another four billion years after that). When that happens, life on Earth will almost certainly die out. Whether our species lasts as long as that, and comes up with a way of colonising other places in space to carry on, remains to be seen. But if we do, I think it will be because of our development of science, rather than anything else that humans have ever done.

    • Photo: Louise Dash

      Louise Dash answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I think it’s *one of* the most important things, yes. It’s easy to forget how much of our society is dependent on scientific advances – for example, without the work of the theoretical physicists over the last 100 years, we’d have no computers, no internet, no DVDs, etc.

      Actually this question reminds me of an interview I read with the science writer Marcus Chown (he writes great books by the way) about when he was studying with the great physicist Richard Feynman. He asked Feynman to write to his mum to explain the research he was doing, and Feynman wrote a letter to her saying:

      “Dear Mrs Chown, Please ignore your son’s attempts to teach you physics. Physics is not the most important thing. Love is. Richard Feynman”

      And I think he has a point there. 😀

      (the whole interview is here if you’re interested: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/quantum-theory-via-40tonne-trucks-how-science-writing-became-popular-1866934.html )

    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I think it is important, but it’s not THE most important thing in my life are definitely my family and friends!

    • Photo: Zoe Duck

      Zoe Duck answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      No! Without sounding too harry Pottery, I think family and friends are more important and looking after each other.
      Science has a role to play in this as it helps us treat people who are ill and find better ways of doing things that can give us more leisure time. Science is very very important- not just what science discovers but in showing us all how to analyse a situation and deduce a sensible response based on the evidenc available.

    • Photo: Daniel Richardson

      Daniel Richardson answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Perhaps, yes… Though that probably makes me sound like a mad scientist who would experiment on his children to prove something….

      I say yes because, if we do it right, scientific knowledge is lasting. So of course, family, love, music, flowers, happiness are all important. But they come and they go, and are all the more important because of that. But what is our best chance of continuing to flourish as a species and, just as important, allowing other species to continue to flourish on this planet? It has to be scientific progress. It’s medicine that will allow us to live, understanding biology and geology that will help us maintain the ecosystems of the world, physics that will help us find others. So science will bring material benefits that will support all of these things – family, love, flowers, music. And as well as all that, it’s a way of understanding our world, of getting closer to the truth about things, and that just seems very important to me.

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