Although there are no two identical human beings, we tend to label and group people based on their job, taste, style, and many other features. Labeling based on various attributes usually carries much more than a superficial, temporary characteristic – through our eyes, a label often wrongly represents an essence of the other person, the core of their being. And even if we know that not all the athletes are the same, neither all artists nor businessmen, we frequently create an opinion of others based on placing them in already established groups.
For example, when you hear the word “scientist”, who do you see? Moderately confused, imaginative people in white coats, always looking for the answers to their questions, then new questions, and then answers to those new questions? Or maybe ladies and gentlemen in suits who argue severely using scientific jargon, and from charts and graphs read numerous facts? No matter which picture you create when hearing that word, it has to be clear that it does not define the person, only their profession, interest and characteristics strongly connected with it.
To some, science may seem like an abstract field of human activity, far from coping with real problems in our lives. Who needs complicated calculations or expensive machines with unknown purpose and names that consist of abbreviations of unknown words? Whether they do it on purpose or unconsciously, people often separate science from other human activities, considering it less concrete, practical, real. But, the definition of science doesn’t let us have this attitude. According to Cambridge Dictionary, science is the careful study of the structure and behaviour of the physical world, especially by watching, measuring, and doing experiments, and the development of theories to describe the results of these activities.
Science describes. It explains the physical world. It is not an assemblage of abstract activities far from reality, but on the contrary, an assemblage of activities that cannot be livelier than they are. It turns invisible forces that are an essential part of our daily lives into visible calculations and numbers, it explores incredibly well-tuned mechanisms upon which life functions – chemical reactions that cause hunger, happiness, fatigue. Our body, an earthquake, photosynthesis, clouds, reflection of light, vehicle rollover in turning, Doppler effect every time fire truck passes by, a rainbow. All these are riddles we take for granted, and scientists find their reasons and principles.
Think about all the biochemical and medical research, which is quite abstract to all the people who don’t know much about those fields, that at the end results with a discovery of a priceless medicine like penicillin, or research in physics which is even more abstract to laics and ends with solutions in aerodynamics, and eventually airplanes.
But besides solving scientific riddles, scientists need to be able to explain complex processes in a way clear to a certain group of people – whether they are students, laics or other scientists, and that requires knowledge and different skills – as Albert Einstein said: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.“
Sir David Attenborough and Neil DeGrasse Tyson are examples of how science can at the same time be fun and comprehensible to laics, and still, in every speech, scientists can find something new too. That is a skill and a virtue. People like them are the link between nature and society, and without that link, society can hardly understand nature. Misunderstanding of nature often leads to a violation of its balance. And that is the secret. Knowledge and understanding.
How many times have you acted wrongly, thought or said something that you wouldn’t if only you knew the circumstances, reasons or the background to the story?
Understanding is the beginning of the proper action. When we talk about science, to understand mechanisms and processes we need to gain knowledge: we need education, which includes school and university, but can be acquired in other ways too. Knowledge waits to be carried forward, so we could act properly.
Many think that one man has too little power to change anything, but one man has the power to share his knowledge with others, his aims, his reasons to fight, his beliefs, and the reasons for his beliefs. We have to try and change people around us in order to create an environment which approves the positive change. That environment will encourage the ones who don’t have the courage to make the change if they were alone.
If you teach or encourage only one person, you give them the chance to carry the knowledge, the skills, the questions forward. And then it is not only one person – then our ability to change things grows.
„It’s the environment. And if you get the environment right, every single one of us has the capacity to do these remarkable things, and more importantly, others have that capacity too.“ S. Sinek