Demystifying Science

My blog tries to explain the basic mechanisms of science to non-scientists. Many of the blogs come from columns written for The Lakeville Journal in Lakeville CT. These columns have a number of themes, but among the most important is the value of basic science. It is curiosity driven, may have no immediate use and costs money, but it has given rise to everything that is useful in science and medicine. We also encourage skepticism.

We often write about vaccines to explain how they work and what progress science is making. The current blogs are focused on Genetically Modicifed Organisms and according to our theme, try to explain mechanism. Another focus if the value of vaccines.

Science has evolved methods that are the best way for us to understand the natural world, whether it concerns the death of chestnut trees or the death of neurons. Scientists search for theories to explain natural phenomena and these can be disruptive – as with evolution or cosmology or climate change. 

When writing for non-scientists it helps to have a non-scientist as a critic and for this we thank Mrs. Susan Maclin of Houston, Texas. If she doesn’t understand a column it gets rewritten.