Introduction to this blog's special theme Science Backstage

Read this series of Science Backstage if you have ever wanted to know what scientists do all day and how they produce knowledge.

In school we are taught science in terms of results, nobody teaches that science is a process. “We'd all studied science as if it's a series of logical steps between question and answer, but doing research is nothing like that” says Uri Alon his TED talk "Why science demands a leap into the unknown".

Movies just reinforce this enchanted view of science, representing an ideal community, a group of selfless people sharing knowledge to reach a higher goal. That science is intrinsically objective, cooperative and that it involves universal sharing of data and outputs.

Reality in science looks different. I find it important to raise awareness that science is “knowledge in process”  instead of a generator of scientifically proven, unequivocal knowledge. So what can and cannot we expect from science and scientists, who actually are humans too?

This series of articles might appear very critical of science, which is my intention. Nevertheless, I would like to emphasize that scientists discover and produce knowledge that is incredibly valuable for our society. However, I find it important to also talk about the backstage of science and its shortcomings in order to portray a more realistic image of science than is usually presented to the public. Only that way we can ponder on what can be done to support researchers to perform high quality science, which is also the goal of my PhD.

Written by Julia Heuritsch | Uploaded on 15th October 2018