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Asked by anon-175391 to Alex, Alison, David, Ella, hayleypincott, Thomas on 19 Jun 2018.
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David Mills answered on 19 Jun 2018:
Definitely!
Science is how we describe the would around us, and the way in which we can describe new things that do and may exist.
As we head into a future where we have to face climate change, food shortages, rising sea levels and more fun things like faster travel, better computers and longer life spans, we need to understand each of these. We need to develop mathematical models and theories so we can simulate each of these things, make changes to the simulations and see how things change. Science lets us do that in a systematic way.
Say we want to see the effect of reducing coal burning in sea level rise, we could just stop burning coal and measure what happens. Bu the effects might be slow, it might takes years to see a direct effect. People like burning coal, it’s a cheap form of energy, you’d never get everyone to stop just for an experiment. But if you can construct a testable theory and simulate it, you can show people what the effect of burning coal is, then perhaps you can convince them to stop.
The same is true of making faster aircraft, you can’t afford to build hundred of different types to see which is faster, but you can model each on computer and perform experiments on the virtual aircraft to see what changes work best. Once you have a good design you can start to build real-world versions to see if they are as good as you predict. If not, go back to the simulations and see why.
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Alison Hughes answered on 19 Jun 2018:
Science will always be important, regardless of the time. I think we are at a massive point of change in the world and that scientists and research into antibiotics and climate change are incredible important to us right now. At times like this, it is important to listen to scientists and they become vital to improving massive worldwide problems
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Alex Alamri answered on 19 Jun 2018:
It’s absolutely important! If you look at the history of brain surgery and it’s early pioneers, they were all surgeon scientists!
They ran experiments in the lab before they tried surgery to improve people’s lives.
Without research we wouldn’t have modern medicine and surgery!
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Ella Mercer answered on 20 Jun 2018:
I definitely think so! I think recently, like Alison said, science is actually becoming more important and it’s important that we as scientists try to tell the world about what we find so we can try and slow down things like climate change and animal extinctions and the spread of diseases. If a person gets a medicine for a disease this medicine might have taken 20 or 30 years of science to discover and test and test again to make sure it’s safe for humans! What do you think? Can you imagine a world without science?
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Hayley Pincott answered on 20 Jun 2018:
I think science is definitely important for the future, but I also think it’s important now because we have so many issues to face. Global warming and antimicrobial resistance are really relevant now and need tackling.
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Thomas Perriment answered on 20 Jun 2018:
Imagine if we didn’t have scientists investigating and discovering new ways to live in harsh conditions, modern medicine, cars, electricity, or iPhones! No internet, no planes etc.
Without people studying our world and the mechanics of our reality, we would basically be stuck in the Iron Age! Even 1000 years ago we had flamethrowers developed by what we would now consider scientists. In the next 1000 years, we will likely have things we couldn’t even imagine! People in my company are building driver-less vehicles (we call them pods) and studying how to use bacteria in building foundations – without science moving us forwards, we stand still and unfortunately the risks of the world don’t 🙁 we would run out of energy, bacteria and viruses would evolve past our capability of controlling them, and sea levels would rise and we would all have to become very good swimmers!
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