Member-only story
It’s All the Same Science
Whether it’s vaccines or smart phones, the fact is science doesn’t change
It’s no secret the U.S. has a huge problem with science education — even with a huge push in STEM-based curriculums (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) in recent years, American kids still lag behind their international counterparts’ knowledge of science-based subjects.
Unfortunately, those kids’ parents probably know far less about science than they do, and their grandparents may still plant potatoes by the light of the waning moon as the Farmer’s Almanac instructs.
As a result, many Americans erroneously believe science is like sports, and you can just support the teams you like and hate the ones you don’t — but science doesn’t work like that. Science includes a huge range of disciplines we might not think of as “science” right away — that includes everything from climate change, to video games, to prescription medications, to space travel and even your favorite streaming services. But every scientific discipline is based on something called the scientific method.
The scientific method is a straightforward, commonsense approach to solving problems by sticking to a strict procedure:
- Formulate a question about an observation
- Do background…
