To some of the people who are interested in this blog, or maybe most of the people, the answer to the question “why is science important?” might seem painfully obvious. Although I may agree at some times, the discussion of the answer is still important. Recent questioning of scientifically backed techniques or theories in the media and the public at large demonstrates that importance (read: climate change, vaccinations, evolution). Science is a system of investigation of problems, ideas, mechanisms, behaviors, trends, and at the most basic level laws of nature that has a self-consistent system of criticism built-in. Although science may not be perfect, it is in all of its areas the closest thing we have to truth, and the most significant driver of our increasing knowledge of the world around us.
Science is such an important and ever-present good that it can satisfy the questions of various personalities. The first of those is the philosopher, or in some way those who are least concerned with practical details. Although I have no intent to get in to epistemology, it must be said – without any concern for philosophical precision – that science is the closest we get to truth. The results of science are the closest thing we have in our whole existence to “knowing” something. Of course we can “know” that the grass is green, or “know” that we love our mothers, but these are different types of knowledge. To know that something is the case not only in our own experience or from our own perspective, but in an objective way is the knowledge that science provides us.
There can be a much longer discussion on why this is the case. Of course to make the assertion that science provides objective knowledge without any proof seems to be an affront to science itself. However of course, this is a discussion that can become very long and convoluted. The basic reasoning is as follows: Science uses logic and reason to either connect theories, whether just ideas or more concrete things such as axioms, equations, etc. to observed behaviors, or too predict observations that we have not yet made. These ideas are proposed in a precise way, and the observations are quantified mathematically and statistically in order to have a compact description. These scientific results are then generally attempted and hopefully replicated by independent researchers across the world and scrutinized by experts of various types.
Finally, after some combination of a large amount of scrutiny, a number of replicated results, a certain amount of time, and a lack of any counter-examples, something in science moves from just an idea to a real result, or law. These laws are what are really the output of science and are what I refer to when I say ”knowledge”. This is the self-consistent system of scrutiny, and is a big reason why science is a success in its modern form.
I am willing to bet that many of you, and most of the people on earth, are not satisfied with the argument just laid out. It may be just ignorance of the details of the scientific process, or just a lack of satisfaction with an increase in knowledge really being important. Both of those are understandable, and especially for science like the LHC at CERN in Geneva, this increase in knowledge actually doesn’t really seem that relevant. People who have these criticisms are more concerned with practical details, but the beauty of science is that it has answers to that as well.
The most beautiful example of this is the device that you are reading this on right now. The modern computing and internet revolution is wholly thanks to science that was only 100 years ago considered bizarre, crazy, somewhat tenuous, and not connected to anything useful in our daily lives.
The Transistor, which is responsible for the operation of our computer processors at the most basic level (and has been decreasing in size exponentially) is a device explained by what is called Solid-State Physics, an extension of Quantum Mechanics to specific systems. Quantum Mechanics was only solidified in the 1920s, and still is considered strange and bizarre (and is, in my opinion).
The GPS systems that we depend on so much rely on GPS satellites (yes, actual satellites in space) that are only accurate because of Relativistic corrections to their internal clocks. Einstein’s theories of relativity were absolutely groundbreaking results in the beginning of the 20th century, but also involved math that a very small percentage of physicists could even understand (still true).
The fiber optic communications systems that give us such fast internet speeds rely on the bouncing of pulses of light through glass rods the size of a human hair. Those light pulses are created and then received by devices dependent again on Solid-State Physics.
The screens we look at for so many hours a day were only a futuristic dream before scientists developed new optical theories and systems that could then be perfected by engineers.
I could continue ad-nauseum about such examples, but the point is this. Science is the most important driver of innovation in many sectors of our lives. This innovation increases quality of life, increases the ability of the human race, and spurs economic growth year after year after year. BUT, this is not just the science that is familiar to us, or that is sure to result in something tangible. This is all science. Science at the most basic level, in our time seeming to have absolutely no connection to anything practical may be what revolutionizes society in the next generations.
This is important. This is absolutely the most relevant and stunning claim that science has to necessity. But there is one last property of science that must be mentioned. It is just undeniably cool. I for one have worked on some of the most intense lasers in the world, and for a small amount of time on fusion energy. We are in labs all over the world recreating and observing phenomenon that have never been witnessed on earth and only in the far reaches of space in the most exotic scenarios. And, as Carl Sagan once said and Niel DeGrasse Tyson has reminded us, we are all made of star stuff.
The heavy atoms that make life possible and exist within our bodies were born in stars billions of years ago. Physicists and Cosmologists have shown that when the universe was young certain stars were the only place where these heavy elements could possibly be created. If you could trace back the iron in our blood, billions of years ago it was formed in some of the most extreme conditions ever seen in the history of the universe.
Science has so much to offer society, so much innovation to excite, and so much meaning to bring to our existence here. Sometimes scientists seem arrogant. Sometimes scientific research seems too farfetched or too isolated. And sometimes what scientists expect or predict turns out to be wrong. However, the case for science being important and integral to our society is absolutely closed. We must science as paramount, and we must continue to do so for as long as there are questions to be answered.