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yml's picture

What is science?

These first few classes were very interesting yet overwhelming too. As we talked about it in the class quite bit, most of us were taught to believe science is definite and gives truth. I was a firm believer of this idea. In fact, one thing I really liked about science is that it gives definite answers, unlike many other subjects we learn at school. So when Prof. said that science can provide summaries of wide observations, but not the truth, it came to me as fresh mind, as well as shocking. (Maybe people felt this way when they first "heard" that earth is not flat and it's really round?) I was little sad too, that science can no longer give me definite answers. But I realized that it actually openes up more doors to science and provide me with new ways to think about science. I especially liked the idea of "the crack". Usually, crack isn't a good thing (ex. on wall). But in the science, it provides chance of making new discovery and find new observations. This makes sense!

"Making sense" is another idea that I thought about a lot this week. I believe the earth is round and not flat, because it makes sense. Does "making sense" come from my summaries of observations? It made sense that the science give definite answers, based on my experiences with previous science classes and how I was taught. Now it makes sense that science cannot purely be objective and it cannot give truth, because we had this discussion in the class and it made sense to me. I now have new summary of observation. But then another question comes into my mind: if I learn about new thing but I don't understand or I don't agree, therefore it "does not make sense", then do I not have made new summary of observation?

I am tryign to change my previous views about how I percieved the science, this whole universe, or more in the process of resetting my brain. This is quite challenging and thought consuming, but it truly is an eye opening experience.

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