When you look for the definition of science, you will find various results. You might conclude, however, that none of them is fully satisfactory. The following presentation will try to answer the basic questions 'What are science and research?'
The fundamentals (Part A)
I think we all have all had the experience of getting sick. What do you do when you are sick? Sleep? Go to see a doctor? I think we all have different answers to this question.
And if you asked your friends or relatives the same question, they would probably give you different answers, too.
Some may suggest taking vitamin C because they believe it can help you become stronger to fight against diseases, or even prevent them. Some may suggest drinking Chinese herbal tea...this is
a common practice for Chinese people. You may also be advised to do more exercise, or to get more rest. Of course there are still many other different methods you might try, but how do you
decide what to do?
Most people follow the advice that makes the most sense to them, and if they find they still feel terrible, they try another method. In fact this kind of testing of ideas, and discarding ones
that don't work, is a kind of 'everyday Science'.
But…even if you feel better after trying a new cold treatment, you can't know if your recovery occurred because the treatment was effective ,or because the cold was ending anyway! You can't
prove it, can you?
How about scientists? How might they decide what treatment to try? How would they determine which advice is the best? Learning to understand scientific research is not always easy. Scientists
have developed specialized steps, processes and language for planning, conducting and reporting their research.
And – you will know their answer by the end of this lecture!! Ok. Let's get started learning about scientific research.
Discussion of science and research is all around us. You may see the results of scientific research reported in local newspapers, and hear about recent findings from scientists through the
Internet. You may even consider scientific findings when you decide which new mobile phone to buy!
We all know the word 'science', but it is difficult to define. When you look for the definition of 'science', you will find various results. You might conclude, however, that none of them is
fully satisfactory. The word 'science' is a derivative of the Latin 'scientia', which simply means 'knowledge'. But you can easily imagine a person with great knowledge who
is not necessarily a scientist. Another way of defining 'science' is as a system of acquiring knowledge through scientific methods, and then organizing the body of
knowledge gained through such research.
No matter what definition you choose, you should bear in mind that doing science doesnot mean memorizing what is already known about the world, but does mean discovering
something new and previously unknown.
In general, scientific researchers start with simple questions. They then seek to gather data and conduct experiments to answer the questions they pose. Science is therefore not just a
collection of facts, concepts, and ideas about nature, or even the systematic investigation of nature; even though these are common assumptions about science.
For example, when you think of science, you may think of formulas and facts to memorize. You probably studied DNA molecules in a biology class by memorizing the terms of the four nucleotides
– that is, adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Or maybe you learned about velocity in physics class by practising with formula such as V = d/t; that is, velocity equals
distance over time.
Such knowledge is an important part of science, but it does not cover all of science! In addition to a body of knowledge that includes formulas and facts, science is
a practice by which we pursue answers to questions that can be approached scientifically. But then what is research?
Research is actually a process of steps used to collect and analyse information – in this case course we mean data – in order to increase our understanding of a problem. We can say that
research consists of three main steps:
- first, asking a question;
- then, second, collecting data to answer the question;
- and finally presenting an answer to the question.
There are definitely a few more steps researchers must complete when they conduct their research; this short list simply provides an overall framework for research. As you learn about the
steps in the research process in the following slides, you will become more familiar with the process, but you will find that these three steps are the core elements of any research
study.
To keep things simple, we can simply combine our conceptions of science and research to remind us that the 'scientific research method' is basically a systematic process that comprises
steps that scientists use to solve problems and acquire knowledge. Scientists use the scientific method to search for cause and effect relationships in nature. We will talk more about the
cause and effect relationships in later when we discuss how to construct hypotheses.
Although you now know that 'knowledge' is the goal of science, remember that the knowledge described here is not 'static'. Instead, it is a dynamic process!
Imagine if scientific knowledge did not change: if that were so, we would spend most of our available time reading the literature rather than gathering new data from hands-on experiments.
For example, how would we know about the four nucleotide bases A T C G contained in DNA molecules? These were not revealed by chance, but through the work of many researchers and scientists
collecting data, evaluating the results, and putting together a comprehensive theory that explained their observations.
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