Write an essay on "Celebrating science"
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Answer:
Science Week (sometimes National Science Week) refers to series of science-related events for the general public which are held in a specific countries during a designated week of the year. The aim of such science weeks is to engage and inspire people of all ages with science, engineering and technology.
Answer:
In 1963, Sir Peter Medawar published a provocative essay, “Is the scientific paper a fraud?”. With characteristic vigour, he asserted that the typical research paper misrepresents the reality of scientific work, in being written as if the venture unfolded in an unchecked and logical way. His argument has resonated with me for years, so I was delighted to discover that Robert Simmons feels the same way (“Sense and sensibility”, Nature 411, 243; 2001). In life, as in real laboratories and fieldwork, nothing proceeds with such smooth progress.
Perhaps more importantly, the “fraudulence” is not simply that the process is idealized; the passion is invariably drained too. This is the result of both the scientific culture and the reviewing process: important though both are, they etiolate the paper as an account of what the scientists have achieved. If (like art) science is concerned with understanding the world and our place in it, then it must be a passionate activity. Could anything be more important?
How much of that is apparent in scientific publications? If they have been stripped bare, do they falsify the nature of science? Contrast the cool brevity of Watson and Crick's 1953 account of the structure of DNA with the significance and impact of their paper about the molecule of the twentieth century.
The philosopher A. N. Whitehead thought that language is incomplete and fragmentary; is the problem of science that it must be made complete and concrete? In another essay, “Lucky Jim” (1968), Medawar asserted: “The history of science bores most scientists stiff.” Possibly so, but the quiddity of what they do and how they account for that to themselves and their colleagues should be of deep concern. It is reassuring that such scientists as Lewis Thomas, Jared Diamond and Primo Levi (not to mention Medawar himself) have — when roaming beyond the fetters of the scientific paper — transcended that dichotomy.