Tag Archives: what is science?

Science Policy in Canada: We should be ashamed…

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Dave

When asked to identify the most important issues affecting their country, Canadians often list three items: economy, healthcare, and environment. Though often underappreciated, the advancement of science and technology is a common thread that underpins and indeed is inextricably tied to these three major issues. We live in a world where the economy is driven by innovation, medicine requires further advances each day to save and improve lives, and an environmental crisis is upon us as our climate changes as a direct consequence of our modern lifestyle. Continue reading →

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What Is Science?

Posted on January 17, 2010 by Beth

I can honestly say that I never truly experienced science until I was a graduate student. Sure, I had a fair chunk of labs in my undergraduate degree – first year involved a full year of biology, chemistry and physics lab sections, and upper years included labs sections in analytical chemistry and organic chem and an entire course that consisted of a biochemistry lab. But each of these labs was what we like to call “cookbook labs” – we weren’t generating and then testing any hypotheses; rather, we were following a recipe that we were given to try to find a predetermined answer – the person with the answer closest to the one the prof has already determined gets the best grade. We were learning the technical skills – how to use a pipette, run a DNA fingerprint, or perform a titration, but that was all… Continue reading →

Posted in General, Science Communication | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments