“The quest to answer a question is where the learning takes place, not the answer itself.”

-Dick Zare, Stanford University in his Chemical and Engineering New editorial (July 14, 2008).

I really hope that a lot of non-scientists read this book.  I also really hope a lot of scientists, and students who are thinking about becoming scientists do too.  Angier’s synopsis of her intereviews with scientists about what scientific thought is are good.  Wordy, but good.  [1]

Here’s some of what you might get from this chapter:

• Science is a way of thinking, not a set of facts to memorize.
• Science is not reductionism.  Understanding science enhances one’s appreciation for the natural world.
• Scientific thought is based on evidence.  Good evidence can (eventually) be revolutionary.
• Science is uncertain.  And that is certainly a fact.
• Scientific thought is not math.

I can’t agree more that science is a way of thinking, and not a set of facts to memorize.  I think this is a misconception that many students, teachers, textbook authors (or at least publishers) have.  As a chemistry professor, I frequently encounter the dogma of science from many different sides.  Students want to know what will be on the test.  Colleagues worry about the amount of content covered in a course.  The facts, however, are that research in scientific pedagogy show that students learn more and enjoy the subject more when depth of coverage, rather than breadth is emphasized. [2]

The message?  When science is treated as dogmatic facts, it turns people off.  The joy in science is the doing of it, the method, the process.  That’s where you learn new things, often things you didn’t set out to learn.

Reductionism.  It’s almost as dirty a word as liberal.  Or conservative.  We scientists are often labeled as reductionists, who take all the natural beauty, mystery, and magic from nature when we explain why the sky is blue.  Or why guacamole turns brown. [3]  Or why squirting lemon juice on guacamole slows the browning process down. [4]

Kant said it best (pg 26 of Canon):

The most astonishing thing about the universe is that it can be understood.

In any kind of rational world, understanding adds to the beauty.  That’s my opinion.

Speaking of opinion, that is not what science is about.  Science demands evidence. Opinions don’t.  The only facts from science are the data that we measure.  So we’re very careful to do it well, and we constantly question our own and other’s measurements.  Eventually, some data becomes “fact”, with a bit of uncertainty of course.  Then the interpretations come.  These may change over time – which is exactly why science is not a set of facts to be memorized!

Uncertainty.  We scientists live with it.  A measurement without some statement of the error in it is worthless.  Unfortunately this is often used as a way for politicians to confuse issues, “They aren’t 100% sure…”.  If I told you I was 95% confident that a piano was going to land on your head if you didn’t move, what would you do?  I thought so.  That’s the confidence level that we like to work at – 95%.  If you’d jump out of the way of a piano (even though I’m not 100% sure it will hit you) [5], shouldn’t you take this type of uncertainty seriously?

Finally, scientific thought is not math.  Mathematics does an amazingly good job of helping scientists communicate.  As an experimental physical chemist, math is an important part of my toolbox.  But so is creativity and the ability to apply duct tape to the right part of an apparatus and keep it working.  My colleague, who is a theoretical chemist (theoretical meaning quantum mechanic, not a comment on him as a chemist) uses mathematics at a much higher level than I do.  Some chemists use little more than arithmetic.  Mathematics is useful only because when we make measurements, we often wind up with numerical results, or because it is simply easier to communicate with mathematics.

Probabilites are important.  That’s the subject of the next chapter.

[1]  Scientists are taught to write concisely.  Angiers is not a scientist.  That’s ok though.

[2]  See the Chemist’s Guide to Effective Teaching, Pienta, Cooper and Greenbowe (Prentice Hall, 2005).

[3]  Polyphenyl oxidase, an enzyme, catalyzes the polymerization of catechol.  The polymer is the brown stuff.

[4]  Ascorbic acid inhibits the enzymatic polymerization of catechol.

[5]  Made you look!  This is just here in case Ψ*Ψ is reading.