- Jan 2024
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some discoveries are made by serendipity, that is, by means of a fortunate accident or a lucky surprise. Penicillin was discovered when biologist Alexander Fleming accidentally left a petri dish of Staphylococcus bacteria open. An unwanted mold grew, killing the bacteria. The mold turned out to be Penicillium, and a new critically important antibiotic was discovered.
This is very interesting to me! Of course I'm aware of the "happy accidents" that take place to give us things we use and don't even think of it as being accidental. But I had no clue something as important as Penicillin was anything but a worked after discovery, not a accident.
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There are however, areas of knowledge and human experience that the methods of science cannot be applied to. These include such things as answering purely moral questions, aesthetic questions, or what can be generally categorized as spiritual questions.
This is my tricky or troubling fact. I think it may just be purely human to wonder about the afterlife and we like to create ideas and follow religion but were blindly following in a sense. As a religious person I myself don't know more about the afterlife than the next person does. And the fact that science cannot prove what is and isn't involved in the afterlife is troubling to say the least.
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Many scientists think that a basic understanding of science is necessary before an application is developed; therefore, applied science relies on the results generated through basic science. Other scientists think that it is time to move on from basic science and instead to find solutions to actual problems.
I think this surprising because how can you as a scientist want to move past expanding the knowledge in the field. Of course it is also important to look for solutions to prevalent real world problems but would it also not be important to have a great understanding to back you up?
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