hi this is Harry again this is the third in a four-part series answering the question what is science based on the items of the natural science quiz developed by Larry flamer so in this clip we'll be looking at these five items here the first item here is quite an interesting misconception that a lot of people have that science is an uncreative process when actually creativity is required at every step of the scientific process the formulation of a hypothesis requires researcher to brainstorm or find in literature or possible independent variables that could affect the phenomenon they are studying quite often novel experiments then have to be designed to test his hypothesis and a multitude of decisions made as to how to control controlled variables and measure dependent variables once the D data is collected decisions must be made as to how to analyze and represent the data but more importantly how the data will be interpreted how relats to previous findings on the topic and what it means for the future of the field actually actually science is a complex interaction before between four broad methods these are descriptive modeling theoretical and experimental methods so let's have a look at each of these in turn within the descriptive methods these are scientists who go out and describe the world and whatever is in it in minute detail so you might be a botanist or an entomologist or even an astronomer who discovers a new star or a plan planet or a plant or an insect or a microb and you describe these in minute detail or you might be a chemist who discovers a new drug then you're going to describe the chemical structure its boiling point its melting point its other physical properties the reactions that is capable of and perhaps adverse reactions that that might occur when somebody takes it then there's the modeling sciences and these are most often um related to meteorology and climatology but you might might also be an engineer who looks at racing cars or airplanes and use complex mathematical models to test new designs within a wind tunnel or a virtual wind tunnel as you can see there so these scientists use mathematical equations to represent the weather or climate respectively that is in with meteorology and climatology they can't do experimen in the traditional sense so they check their models by seeing how well they match the known data or by backcasting and how well they predict the future which is forecasting then there's the theoretical meth methods so for example Steven Hawkings is a theoretical scientist but also Peter higs and uh Sheldon Cooper they're all theoretical scci scientist so what these do what these guys do is they use mathematics to develop new theories which then are ex which then an experimental physicist will then design an experiment to test another example is Einstein so Einstein's theory of general relativity couldn't be tested for 50 years because we didn't have the technology to do so but now their understanding has allowed us to develop GPS and actually enable our smartphones to work however the queen of all methods within the Sciences are the experimental methods and eventually all claims must pass through these methods if they are to be deemed science experiments were a key innovation which made science so successful in explain the universe compared to other ways of knowing such as history and philosophy and theology because it allowed scientists to establish causality with ever increasing confidence it allowed scientists to establish causality by isolating and controlling variables and measuring the effect of that change on another variable whilst holding all others constant so for example it allowed scientists to pin down that microbes were the cause of infectious disease and not curses immoral Behavior or bad air it allowed scientists to show that we actually live in a Quantum Universe it showed us how to control the electromagnetic force to give us radio television movies and electricity and allowed us to understand the forces of flight to give us airplanes rockets and eventually put a man on the moon science far and away is Humanity's best invention for investigating How the Universe actually works so while many other fields of knowledge have description so for example history or modeling for example economics and theorizing for example philosophy experimentation is unique to science let's have a look at this question here knowledge of what science is what it can do and cannot do and how it works is important for all educated people many of our current problems could have been prevented or reduced with political leaders Business Leaders and a voting public recognize how good science is done and how its reliability is measured the growing and undeniable evidence of man-made global warming over natural warming has been strongly and increasingly supported by scientific studies too many people in power most of the general public who could have created pressure have simply not understood the benefit of and power of science many people try and discredit science or only look at few studies that seem to fit their own vested interests or political leanings and ignore the vast majority of scientific studies that clearly show how our world is changing before it becomes obvious to everyone we see this in quack medicine and many other frauds and pseudo sciences that can be spread even faster now via the internet without knowing the nature of science or how to critically analyze evidence most of the world's citizens are at the mercy of huers so the take-home message from this clip is that science involves many methods that scientist science is a creative process and experimentation is unique to science so here's a few words before by Neil degrass Tyson