What is Science? Part 2

This is the second episode of a mini series of podcasts in which we are trying to answer the question: What is Science?

In this episode you hear Jem Stansfield's definition of Science. He believes that many poeple don't think about what it means, where as he has had some time to do so. And his conclusion: its a method, regardless of the subject area.

Come up with a theory, test the theory, perform experiment, evaluate, redo etc etc. But the most important thing to him is writing it up so that anyone can replicate and improve. Whether bouncing football or extracting DNA, if you don't follow the method, its not science.

He thinks that if you just apply an equation to an idea, it's not quite the same. In his opinion, it's more like cooking, not science. "You're just taking a recipe, and using that recipe to make something that you want."

Jem didn't like this way of doing engineering at university: he thought that if you could design an aeroplane, without properly understanding what you are doing, and then unintentionally making a bad aeroplane.

"I don't see any difference between using complicated equations to get results, and combining eggs and flower and sugar to get a cake. It's the same thing."

That's Jem's thoughts, but what are yours? Please leave some comments below, or get involved with the discussion on Twitter with the hashtag #CitizensofScience.

What would be even better is if you wanted to get involved with this discussion on the show! Have you got a definition of science that you want to share with the listeners? Please do get in touch, as we would like to have as varied a definition as possible in the next three episodes!

Image credit: 1902, Home Science Publishing Company