Why Study Science?

[What follows is an edited version of an email I sent to the science faculty at the college today. The task at hand is, quite simply, to propose a small number of goals for the study of the natural sciences.]

In my humble opinion, this is important stuff. By identifying and articulating goals for the natural sciences we are saying who we are. Do we know who we are? If we don’t, or if our answer keeps changing, isn’t it valuable to engage in thinking about this every so often? And shouldn’t we be publicly proclaiming who we are and what we do by identifying our goals?

I found myself reacting, initially, to one of the proposed goals in the email we received from one of our members, i.e., demonstrate application of the scientific method to real world. I would hope that we could eliminate from consideration a goal that uses such a pedestrian term as the “real world.” This, to me, connotes that there is, indeed, a discreet, identifiable, knowable, and objective “reality” — a concept entirely at odds with most everything we can infer from the field of quantum physics. We have come a long way in the manner in which we define our physical world, from a “scientific” viewpoint, just in the time I have been alive. When I was an undergraduate chemistry student, the only application of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle that I knew of referred to the position and momentum of an electron: the better we were able to determine the position, the less we knew about its momentum. I’m sure we still teach that. However, in more recent times, Heisenberg is cited widely in all areas of inquiry, namely that we now assume the mere observation of a phenomenon fundamentally changes it. That brings me back to “what is the ‘real world’ anyway?”

I initially became an organic chemist because it was, at that time, my way of “knowing the world.” My experience of the universe had a lot more to do with chemical kinetics and reaction mechanisms of carbon-based molecules than it did with anything having to do with human beings. I was darn good at what I did back then, publishing several articles as a grad student, but one of the reasons I moved on to explore other things in my life, is that I truly believed that there was more than one way of knowing the world and I wanted to continue “knowing” as much, and in as many ways, as I could. People had always fascinated me, and I eventually moved on from researching reaction mechanisms to inquiring about individual-, group- and organizational-dynamics.

Which brings us to “knowing.” The primary epistemological question is: what does it mean to know? (or: what is knowledge?) This is the question of continuing, and endless, philosophical debate. A question that fascinates me. Do you have an answer to what it means “to know” something? Were you, like me, attracted to science because you wanted to know, inquire, research, explore?

If so, shouldn’t we be saying something in our goals for the natural sciences that speaks directly to why and how we inquire into our physical universe (note I didn't say “reality”). What else we should be identifying as goals, I’m not entirely sure ... so I don’t really have a definitive set of goal statements that would replace the ones we received. I do know there is language out there, proposed by other science departments, that probably more closely match my world view, however.

For example, the General Education Core Curriculum of the State of Illinois, states that the purpose for studying science is to:

● develop students’ understanding of the methods of scientific inquiry, including the formulation and testing of hypotheses;

● familiarize students with selected scientific principles in the physical and life sciences;

● enable students to make informed decisions about personal and societal issues.

OK, well, maybe this is enough of a monologue for today! (I think there was a point to all of this.) I would like you all to participate. I would like for us to examine who we are as scientists. And I would like to translate all of that into goals for the sciences that we feel comfortable with in our public declaration.

I welcome your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and competing views...