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Asked by sadia12345 to Ivan, James, Jessica, Nicola, Sarah on 12 Nov 2013.
Question: Is science confusing?
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Jessica Liley answered on 12 Nov 2013:
Yes and No!
Apparently the word “science” comes from the Latin word for “knowledge” … it’s all about discovering answers to questions about the world around us, through study and practice, and based on facts.
Science actually makes a lot of sense, because all science is based on facts.
But, learning science and trying to understand and interpret all sorts of facts and theories can be totally confusing! There are so many different areas to it – Physical science like chemistry and maths, Life sciences like biology, Earth sciences, but even Social sciences like psychology are called a “science” too. Each of these subjects has many different theories written by certain scientist, which are then disagreed with and challenged by other scientists, who come up with completely different theories!
So it’s pretty confusing, but it’s exciting and it’s ongoing – it won’t ever be “finished”, so there’s always something else to discover!
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Sarah Tesh answered on 12 Nov 2013:
Jessica is definitely right! Science can be both confusing and simple!
When I was at school doing my A-levels I found Chemistry confusing and frustrating. But then on the other hand Physics was fine! Then since coming to university I’ve discovered that even within Physics there are areas that are totally confusing and require you to get your head around some ideas that sound impossible and imaginary. And yet I have friends who love those areas and find it incredibly simple!
So it depends on you as an individual. Sometimes you’ll even find something is confusing one day and then it’ll click a few days later and be really simple and logical. The thing to remember is that it science is just describing the world around you. The end point is logical and factual but there are some weird theories along the way!
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Nicola Potts answered on 12 Nov 2013:
I think Jessica and Sarah are right by saying yes and no.
When trying to learn something or understand results in front of you it can feel like the most confusing thing in the world.
But when you take individual aspects of science they tend to always be very logical and straightforward. It’s just understanding certain aspects and putting them together.
But I still confused with science and I sometimes feel like I don’t understand what I am doing at all.
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James King answered on 14 Nov 2013:
Science can be very confusing, but this is part of what science is!
What I mean by this is that scientists use a method to prove or disprove theories and in many cases the science is not completely proved to be true. This means that we end of thinking of these things to be true under certain conditions, while in other conditions they are not.
An example is if you throw an apple into the air it will fall back down because of gravitational force of the earth acting on it. However, if you travelled above the earth’s surface and threw the apple up it is less likely to fall back down, with the chance being even less the further you went up!
These debates of what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ is exactly what makes science exciting and keeps scientists pushing for answers to their questions!
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Ivan Campeotto answered on 19 Nov 2013:
I do not think that science is confusing. It is like trying to build a huge puzzle. At the beginning it seems to be confusing because you do not know which pieces go together but later when you start to put together the pieces, it makes much more sense and a bigger picture appear. However, in science the puzzle keeps on expanding and so when you thought that the puzzle has almost finished, the research starts again. This is also the beauty of science.
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