The methods and objectives in scientific research

In this video you will learn about WHAT science is, what is science FOR and how it usually PROCEEDS. Hope you will enjoy this brief journey. We begin by showing you the purpose of Science.

Although Science does not hold the absolute TRUTH, the purpose is : to ask questions that come from our natural CURIOSITY, we want to know how things happen, when and why. Usually Science deals with the Material World, but some Sciences such as Psychology, Psychiatry, Endocrinology,… also touch on our mental and emotional world.

The purpose is: to arrive to some kind of proof or DEMONSTRATION that things work in a certain way, and establish the RULES. Nature usually does not tell us HOW THINGS WORK, we have to find it ourselves. This is the beginning of modern experimental science, and is also the fun part. To do experiments Science usually needs to isolate objects and events, to study each one separately and reduce complexity. This is also a LIMIT, since when we bring the pieces together sometimes it does not fully work. About the Method. Science OBSERVES. That means, have good detection toos, repeat your observations, ask around and gather information and opinions on the subject. Don’t forget to use the right tools and scales.

You will not examine a chicken egg with an atomic force microscope, but you will not detect proteins by looking with your eyes. Each measure require the right tools, reagents and equipment. Science RAISES HYPOTHESIS. These should be Coherent (that means should try to explain thinks logically), Testable (that means doable) and Reproucible (that means that we can trust) Science DESIGNS and DOES EXPERIMENTS, To do this we usually COMPARE things and MEASURE something. Our eyes are not very good measuring tools Science ANALYZES the RESULTS. Here we need to be very honest. We calculate, we repeat and recalculate, and do some statistics to see if we are right or wrong. Honestly. Science needs to PUBLISHE THE RESULTS. Here comes the FIRST BIG PROBLEM.

Who decides this is GOOD science, this is BAD science. Mmmhh difficult. FIRST we need to WRITE the ARTICLE and SEND it to a Scientific Journal. The peer review system comes to help. This means, in few words, that 2 or 3 anonymous experts read our article, raise critics, make comments and suggestions. Sometime they reject my work, telling the reason why. But if the opinion is positive, it will go for publication. This is a real assurance of quality and trust. Published results build knowledge, unpublished ones build rumors. Here is the SECOND big problem COMMUNICATION. Let’s try to open some scientific journals, the good ones with Peer Review… “….Read a piece of an article” …. Terrible, Incomprehensible.

Let’s look at another one “… Read a piece of an article” … Even worse, totally incomprehensible. Let’s try a last one Let’s try one more time “ …Read a piece of an article” That’s it. I give up. There is a clear communication issue. Scientists speak with other scientists in ways that are rigorous and precise, but no one comprehends, except for them. in the next Steps we will discuss this important issue of Information and Comunication.