This is a pretty tough question when the very concept of what constitutes science is still being heatedly debated. One point that can be reasonably agreed upon is that science is a way of understanding and explaining phenomena. Or may be science is any number of ways of understanding and explaining phenomena. Good science has several requisites which can be made to sound obscure and even intimidating but they need not be. To do science one needs a problem – a question. That actually is the hard part – coming up with a problem, particularly one that hasn't been resolved by someone else. Contrary to textbook and comic book images, most scientists don't start with a problem. They encounter problems (or questions) in the course of working on some other problem
So how does one find a problem in the first place? Scientists are prolific readers and many ideas for new work come from reading what other scientists report. An important rule is that good science requires good information. Good information is ultimately sought from the source – scientific journals – of which there are thousands covering every imaginable topic. How does one tap into this often bewildering mass of information? First there are a number of science magazines written for the interested non–scientist or scientist interested in other disciplines. Among the best are Scientific American, Science News, Natural History, American Scientist, and Discover. There are a number of magazines devoted to more specific topics like Earth, Astronomy, and Archaeology. There are good sources of ideas although ideas can come from just about anywhere.
The important point about an idea is that it be defined as a question or problem that can be investigated or tested. Can the idea/question/problem be framed in such a way that it can be verified or disproven? A popular notion (even among scientists) is that a scientific investigation starts with a hypothesis. A hypothesis is no more than a testable assumption. The truth of the matter is that a great deal of science involves the quest for an explanation. When one draws conclusions based upon observations (induction) it is just as much science as testing an assumption or hypothesis (deduction). Scientists are constantly working in both modes. Confusing? It should be because as previously noted, scientists, historians, sociologists, and philosophers are still trying to define both science and scientific methodology. Reading books by scientists can give more insight than reading "how to do" books. Peter Medawar's Advice to a Young Scientist and other books of his are a good place to start.
Certainly, one of the finest contemporary science writers is Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard. Gould's books (Ever Since Darwin, The Panda's Thumb, The Flamingo's Smile, and several more) are all full of examples of the workings of science and the history of ideas, especially in the life sciences. Books by Carl Sagan of Cornell are good examples of science made lucid. These and many other books by and about science and scientists are the best way to get a feeling for the workings of a discipline and the functioning of science. In fact just browsing through the "Q" section or the "500" section of the library is a good way to pick up ideas.
The important point to understand is that science can be no better than the quality of the information upon which one's work is based. If one is gathering information the gathering must be done with great care or the conclusions will be flawed. If one is using information gathered by others or working with conclusions made by others one has to be careful that these sources are reliable. The best means of assuring reliability is to use material from sources prepared for other scientists – professional journals. Most regional libraries can access information from many sources. Sources such as popular magazines are generally not acceptable sources for scientific writing. Although scientific journals may seem daunting for students just beginning to work on projects one soon learns that some scientific writing is virtually impossible to comprehend and some is very accessible.
College texts are often good sources of information and illustrations and usually have bibliographies of basic sources. Libraries often have computer access to data bases of recently published papers in all the sciences and medicine (EAI, the Expanded Academic Index is a really useful tool for finding just about anything). If a local library cannot access such a data base then a trip to the nearest campus is a good idea. The Internet also gives students access to good articles and project ideas.
It is important to distinguish between a report and a scientific paper. A report is just that – a retelling of material gathered by others and frequently derived from encyclopedias and popular magazines or pamphlets. Scientific writing means that the investigator is gathering reliable information and drawing reasonable conclusions. Science projects are always big on hypotheses, but one cannot "generate a hypothesis" without first knowing quite a bit about the subject. Science is often a matter of figuring something out. This may or may not involve the generation of whole series of working hypotheses. The point is that science illuminates, tells us something we didn't know before. If we knew it before (e.g., smoking is bad for our health) it isn't science. Figuring out something that no one has figured out before is where the fun comes in. It is definitely not easy at first but what is? The more one works at it the easier the techniques become. The work will be hard (or you are doing something wrong), but the concept of what constitutes science becomes clearer. Then comes the game of figuring out the strategy to answer the question. Without the question there can be no science.
Michael Scullin
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Mankato State University, 1993
