The grand aim of science is to figure out
how it all works, which includes giant questions like: Where did the Universe come from? What is it really made of? How does all that stuff work and interact
with each other? And how is it that human intelligence exists
and is able to experience the Universe and probe it with our minds? You know, small stuff like that. Ever since someone stood underneath a starry
sky, looked up and went, ugh? people have been asking these questions. We can see forms of science as far back as
the ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians, but the theory of science has its roots in philosophy
with the greek philosopher Aristotle being the first to think about how to actually go
about doing science. This methodology has been refined over the
ages and is now called the philosophy of science. This core of science is the scientific method
which contains principles like logic, rationalism, empiricism, evidence, testable hypotheses,
objectivity, and reductionism. This is the toolkit of science and helps us
process the information we get about the universe to work out what is and isn’t true. Mathematics and computer science are not technically
sciences because they don’t study the natural world, but they are very close to science
and are incredibly useful tools for scientists to use. Mathematics is the machinery of physics, and
it is kind of a mystery why mathematics describes the universe so well. Computers are used in all branches of science
because to do science you need a brain, and computers are an amazing tool to augment our
brains. The core of science is made of physics, chemistry
and biology, which contain a load of surrounding disciplines as well. I don’t have space to include them all,
but I have done in-depth maps of all of these subjects so check those out if you want to
find out more. If you take a step back and look at all of
science it is interesting to see how the scientific method changes as you apply it to different
subjects. Physics made huge amounts of progress to understand
the Universe through reductionism, breaking things apart into their smallest components
and understanding them one by one. But when you move up the chain towards chemistry
and biology, reductionism becomes increasingly difficult to apply because these subjects
deal with much more complex systems. If you want to study a part of biology, the
properties of a single thing are strongly defined by its relationships with everything
else. You can no longer study individual pieces
in isolation. Because removing them from their relationships
actually changes the thing you want to study. So there are so many complicated relationships
in things like how your genes in your DNA are expressed to make you, or how your neurons
and neurochemistry chemistry all combine to create the unique experience you are having
now. These systems emerge out of a massive number
of very complicated relationships and so capturing all of that complexity in one model is incredibly
hard. In fact as we get further and further up the
chain away from physics, the entire scientific method starts breaking apart. You can see this in fields like nutrition
and psychology where incredibly important historical results are looking increasingly
questionable like eating saturated fat leading to high cholesterol, or how it is hard to
replicate the results of many famous psychology studies like willpower being a limited resource. But I think that these mistakes are understandable
because trying to come up with a scientific theory that explains, why people do the things
that people do is just a very hard thing to do because people are… complicated! And, in fact there is an argument that the
human brain is the most complex system that we know about in the Universe! And so when you get a load of those to together
doing stuff, like in sociology, it just gets, it just gets crazy. Which brings us to the social sciences which
I have arranged vaguely from more sciency to less sciency. These subjects often contain a mixture of
scientific practices and practices from the humanities, like archeology which uses hard
science techniques from physics to detect structures under the ground, or carbon date
objects, but then the interpretation of what this evidence tells us about the humans that
lived at that time becomes a lot more subjective. Or in fields like economics or political science
where people can apply rigorous statistical techniques to their data, but then the interpretation
of those has to be done by a human brain who is by nature subjective. So the proof that the interpretations are
not scientific is the fact that they can’t predict the future. So in economics it seems we can’t predict
when a recession is going to happen, or what bitcoin is going to do tomorrow, whereas in
physics, if I throw a ball, I can describe the future of that ball incredibly well. But please note that I’m not saying that
subjectivity is necessarily a bad thing. If you’re studying a subject matter that
has these very complex system in them, and you have taken the scientific method to its
breaking point, what else are you going to do, subjectivity really is all you have left. But the trouble comes when it is not recognised
or flagged appropriately, people think they are being objective when they are actually
being subjective, and that does happen. But this is foricing people to innovate with
the scientific method and come up with new techniques to deal with these systems. One example from history are randomised controlled
trials in the pharmaceutical industry to really tell if a drug is working or not and with
the recent replication crisis in the social science, scientists are now trying to come
up with new techniques and methodologies to deal with these complicated systems. And it is a very hard challenge, but that’s
how you progress. But if you want to get at the truth of something
in the world, the scientific method is still our best way of doing that. But now lets carry on our journey and leave
the burden of scientific rigour behind us and move into the arts, a place of pure subjectivity. Is this good art? Well I like it. Okay. The one thing they do share with science is
exploration, pushing the limits of what has been done or thought before. They explore the human condition through books,
movies, music, art and are always trying to find new ways of reflecting on what it is
to be alive, and a human with emotions and a brain with the ability to create. And I think it is just as well we can’t
explain all of those things with science because they would loose all of their charm. That intangible nature is what makes them
so much fun. Some of the most enduring art has tackled
the biggest questions like what is it to be a human? Why are we here? And what should we do with our time here? These are very similar to where we started
and brings us right back to the other side of philosophy. So I got a bit carried away this map isn’t
really a map of science, it is a map of human endeavour. And it isn’t even a map, but a giant cosmic
doughnut of knowledge! Anyway, that’s it. Thanks for watching, and if you want to get
hold of the donut of knowledge, check out the link in the description below to get a
poster. And if you yourself want to learn some science
I’d recommend checking out the sponsor to this video brilliant dot org. It is a website where you learn a lot of the
core concepts in this map, like mathematics, computer science, physics and many more. And you learn them by answering questions
so, in general, when you’re learning a subject you might feel like you know it but there
is only one way to make sure and that is by actually answering questions to test your
knowledge that is using the scientific method on yourself. So that is what you do on brilliant dot org,
you learn by answering questions, but they are fun and engaging they are very satisfying
when you get one right and if you get one wrong there is lots of help and descriptions
to help you work out why. So if that sounds interesting check out brilliant.org/dos
, link is also in the description below. And as an added bonus the first two hundred
people to sign up can get a twenty percent discount of the annual premium membership,
which unlocks all of their content. So check that out. And also we’ve just released the next in
the professor astro cat books which is the space rockets book. So if you have got a youngster in your like
who you’d like to get into science at a young age they are a really good place to
start, link is also in the description below. Well that’s it for me, thanks so much for
watching and I’ll see you on the next video.
