– I look at previous experiments that scientists have done to test similar theories
– I search for the newest technologies that are emerging to see if there is something new that will work better
– Unfortunately, we are sometimes limited by how much money we have to do our research. We have to budget, and see whether we can afford to buy the things we need for an experiment. If we can’t afford it, we need to change the experiment.
– I try to think of ways that we can get good quality results quickly
– I work with animals, so I need to think whether there are any alternatives to using animals first. If there isn’t, I need to determine whether the question the experiment addresses is worth any potential suffering from the animals. If I think that the question is an important one, I need to think of ways to minimise or eliminate animal suffering and minimise the number of animals involved.
– I do a quick test run of the experiment to see whether there will be any problems with it
This is actually a very good question, because it’s kind of the most difficult and easiest thing to do. What am I on about?
You live your life designing experiments, every day. If you cook you experiment with spices, temperatures, ingredients. If you exercise, you experiment with different things to see what you enjoy, or what works best for you. If you paint, or make things, you experiment. You say to yourself – OK, I want to get to this point here, how should I do that?
Science is like this. You ask a question. Like “Is permanent ink really permanent?” So you draw on some paper with a pen and try to remove it, and you can’t. So you say “OK, it looks like the ink is permanent on paper, but what about if I use water” so you try that. Then you try something other than paper, like your skin, and you notice that the ink comes off after a week or so. So you say “so it’s not *really* permanent”
You think like this every day – you think up experiments to test ideas you have in your life. So it’s a natural human instinct, and it not something specially “scientific”
Where the science bit kicks in is that you have to really take the ideas to the max. You have to really question things from every angle, and question the way you think.
So take the permanent ink on skin situation. The ink fades. A scientist would say “well, maybe it’s not the ink fading, maybe it’s the skin coming off”. Now if we didn’t know any better, this would be a gross idea. Skin coming off? Are you nuts? But it turns out that’s true – skin comes off all the time. So the ink IS permanent, it’s the SKIN that isn’t. That kind of switch in the way you think is important in science. You have to question everything.
So that’s why it’s easy and hard. Human beings design experiments all the time. Scientists maybe just have to question things a bit more because the things we’re looking at are too small/too far away/too quick to be seen in everyday life. You have to design experiments that look at things that are not common. Seeing skin cells needs a microscope. So if you want to see skin cells still covered in permanent ink, you have to isolate them and look at them with some piece of equipment you don’t find in Bunnings.
How do we think up these experiments? Don’t know – it’s very creative. Like doing art. Sometimes you get a good idea in the shower, taking a walk, talking to someone. There are no rules, really. You just keep thinking about something, and reading, and then you’ll go “oh, wait a second…”
There are two types of experiments. The first type is to find out something. Is there enough sugar in my coffee? Lets make a measurement! A taste taste is a simple experiment to “measure” how much there is.
The second type is really a variation of the first. I cook a meal and I think the taste might not be perfect yet. So I test that idea with a taste test. The result of the test can be
(1) correct: the taste is not perfect yet (so add some salt or pepper or spice or whatever, or
(2) incorrect: the taste IS perfect (so it’s ready to serve).
Science is about having an idea and then having some test to see if that idea is right or wrong.
Hi xancranmonkey! Like I said in that chat, because I’m such a newbie in the whole research thing, I get a lot of help from my supervisors. So they will get me to talk about what I’m doing and say ‘what do you want to find out? How might you test that?’. Some of the experiments are things I have learned about during my science degree and I know that I could use them. Other times it’s something I’ve never heard of before so I need to understand how to do the experiment, and what the results will mean.
The longer you work in science, the more things you’ve tried, so you get a better idea of what might work. But sometimes people have to come up with totally new experiments because nobody’s done it before. Then they usually write a paper about it and other people can read that and use their experiment too.
I think the types of theories people come up with to test depend on the type of person you are. I have a habit of asking why things are the way they are. This drives my parents crazy as I’m always wanting to change things for the better. So there’s a few things I think about to design an experiment.
– If it’s something that I’ve noticed that is happening and I can’t find enough information on this, I will decide to just observe and write down the things I see to narrow down what is causing the event.
– If I needed to improve a method, I would change one step at a time to determine what would change it the most and then whether I’ve changed it in a good way. If I needed to do something faster it wouldn’t be much help if I slowed things down.
– In the past I have carried out an experiment that someone else had designed to test a theory that I’ve come up with to see whether I come to the same conclusion.
The types of experiments that I come up with depend on how much time and money I have. Most of the time in the past there was never quite enough money to do all the things I wanted to do so I would have to decide what I really needed to know and what I wanted to know.
Lots of different ways.
– I look at previous experiments that scientists have done to test similar theories
– I search for the newest technologies that are emerging to see if there is something new that will work better
– Unfortunately, we are sometimes limited by how much money we have to do our research. We have to budget, and see whether we can afford to buy the things we need for an experiment. If we can’t afford it, we need to change the experiment.
– I try to think of ways that we can get good quality results quickly
– I work with animals, so I need to think whether there are any alternatives to using animals first. If there isn’t, I need to determine whether the question the experiment addresses is worth any potential suffering from the animals. If I think that the question is an important one, I need to think of ways to minimise or eliminate animal suffering and minimise the number of animals involved.
– I do a quick test run of the experiment to see whether there will be any problems with it
0
This is actually a very good question, because it’s kind of the most difficult and easiest thing to do. What am I on about?
You live your life designing experiments, every day. If you cook you experiment with spices, temperatures, ingredients. If you exercise, you experiment with different things to see what you enjoy, or what works best for you. If you paint, or make things, you experiment. You say to yourself – OK, I want to get to this point here, how should I do that?
Science is like this. You ask a question. Like “Is permanent ink really permanent?” So you draw on some paper with a pen and try to remove it, and you can’t. So you say “OK, it looks like the ink is permanent on paper, but what about if I use water” so you try that. Then you try something other than paper, like your skin, and you notice that the ink comes off after a week or so. So you say “so it’s not *really* permanent”
You think like this every day – you think up experiments to test ideas you have in your life. So it’s a natural human instinct, and it not something specially “scientific”
Where the science bit kicks in is that you have to really take the ideas to the max. You have to really question things from every angle, and question the way you think.
So take the permanent ink on skin situation. The ink fades. A scientist would say “well, maybe it’s not the ink fading, maybe it’s the skin coming off”. Now if we didn’t know any better, this would be a gross idea. Skin coming off? Are you nuts? But it turns out that’s true – skin comes off all the time. So the ink IS permanent, it’s the SKIN that isn’t. That kind of switch in the way you think is important in science. You have to question everything.
So that’s why it’s easy and hard. Human beings design experiments all the time. Scientists maybe just have to question things a bit more because the things we’re looking at are too small/too far away/too quick to be seen in everyday life. You have to design experiments that look at things that are not common. Seeing skin cells needs a microscope. So if you want to see skin cells still covered in permanent ink, you have to isolate them and look at them with some piece of equipment you don’t find in Bunnings.
How do we think up these experiments? Don’t know – it’s very creative. Like doing art. Sometimes you get a good idea in the shower, taking a walk, talking to someone. There are no rules, really. You just keep thinking about something, and reading, and then you’ll go “oh, wait a second…”
0
There are two types of experiments. The first type is to find out something. Is there enough sugar in my coffee? Lets make a measurement! A taste taste is a simple experiment to “measure” how much there is.
The second type is really a variation of the first. I cook a meal and I think the taste might not be perfect yet. So I test that idea with a taste test. The result of the test can be
(1) correct: the taste is not perfect yet (so add some salt or pepper or spice or whatever, or
(2) incorrect: the taste IS perfect (so it’s ready to serve).
Science is about having an idea and then having some test to see if that idea is right or wrong.
0
Hi xancranmonkey! Like I said in that chat, because I’m such a newbie in the whole research thing, I get a lot of help from my supervisors. So they will get me to talk about what I’m doing and say ‘what do you want to find out? How might you test that?’. Some of the experiments are things I have learned about during my science degree and I know that I could use them. Other times it’s something I’ve never heard of before so I need to understand how to do the experiment, and what the results will mean.
The longer you work in science, the more things you’ve tried, so you get a better idea of what might work. But sometimes people have to come up with totally new experiments because nobody’s done it before. Then they usually write a paper about it and other people can read that and use their experiment too.
0
I think the types of theories people come up with to test depend on the type of person you are. I have a habit of asking why things are the way they are. This drives my parents crazy as I’m always wanting to change things for the better. So there’s a few things I think about to design an experiment.
– If it’s something that I’ve noticed that is happening and I can’t find enough information on this, I will decide to just observe and write down the things I see to narrow down what is causing the event.
– If I needed to improve a method, I would change one step at a time to determine what would change it the most and then whether I’ve changed it in a good way. If I needed to do something faster it wouldn’t be much help if I slowed things down.
– In the past I have carried out an experiment that someone else had designed to test a theory that I’ve come up with to see whether I come to the same conclusion.
The types of experiments that I come up with depend on how much time and money I have. Most of the time in the past there was never quite enough money to do all the things I wanted to do so I would have to decide what I really needed to know and what I wanted to know.
0