Science is one of humanity's greatest inventions. When
most people talk about science, however they mean technology, industry, business
or academia. While many of these things use science and its products, they are
not in themselves science.
Science is, in fact, a mechanism for finding the most
likely correct answer, based on the data available. The cornerstones of science
are observation and experimentation, with contributions from other things such
as reasoning and logic.
The other day a colleague of mine posed a question to a
class of students:- “When you cook an egg, why doesn’t it always turn out the
same way?” A simple question, but it was gratifying to see the whole class
puzzling over this. If boiling an egg is a simple task, why can the result be
so variable. One answer is that apparently simple thing often involve more
variables than you have considered. What are the variables for cooking an egg
or any other job you attempt? A thought I will leave you with for today.
