Scientific Thinking

Have you ever wondered how Newton came to think about a falling apple ? Have you ever thought that a phenomena as bizarre as speed of light made a genius out of Einstein ? How do these people look at the world ? How does the world seem so different to them ?

How are colors defined, made and used to make dyes ? How does a baby learn to roll, crawl, walk and then talk ? How do we learn to ride a bike, then a car, and then an aircraft ? How do we learn to communicate with family, with friends, and then with foreign diplomats?

Let us see the first set of questions – it is narrowed down to what scientists and inventors do, their ways of thinking and uniqueness that qualifies them apart from the general lot. Now let us observe the simplistic second set of questions – they are for most a common sense and things of general know-how about how this world operates. They seem to be obviously a lot different from the ‘Science’ questions asked earlier. But are they ? To simplify it, both sets of questions constitute what we call Scientific Thinking.

In words of  Blackwell, a cognitive behavioral scientist, scientific thinking is any instance of purposeful thinking that has the objective of enhancing the seeker’s knowledge. It is not a mere understanding, but has a lot to do with one’s conscious effort to acquire knowledge.

A few characteristics make scientific thinking quite different from unconscious learning that we consume during our personal development – Conscious curiosity , Incompleteness of knowledge & Evidence seeking. We may easily call them the Three Pillars of Scientific Thought. A mere unconscious effort to walk is day-to-day understanding, while understanding the mechanism of walking (the number and kind of muscles involved, the mechanical principle of motion and pressure, force and work involved) that helps us to create a Bionic Foot of our own is scientific thinking. Drawing a fish and coloring it, or catching a fish and eating it is the normal theory-seeking in day-to-day life, while understanding the hydrodynamic efficiency of a fish, applying it to build bulky but swift aircraft and submarines, and helping others understand its principles is the scientific thinking. As I am typing this article, based on my day-to-day understanding of my skill to type, I am still ignoring how my brain’s neurons are guiding my fingers to type a specific letter, how the keyboard is sending ‘Logic’ signals to the RAM and how the output is getting displayed by the LCD screen.

It seems fairly observable how the pillars of scientific thinking are quite observable in above examples. The need for one is to see the world differently, not to defy its laws and theories, but to know them and if possible, modify them for a better future.

Click here for government certification in Life Skills