{"id":4251,"date":"2019-06-17T18:19:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T18:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/acchumanbio\/chapter\/1-2-what-is-science\/"},"modified":"2023-11-30T23:46:55","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T23:46:55","slug":"1-2-what-is-science","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/acchumanbio\/chapter\/1-2-what-is-science\/","title":{"raw":"1.2 What is Science?","rendered":"1.2 What is Science?"},"content":{"raw":"[caption id=\"attachment_37\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"400\"]\"1.2.1 Figure 1.2.1 Getting vaccinated.<\/em>[\/caption]\r\n

Ouch!<\/strong><\/h1>\r\nThe person in Figure 1.2.1 is getting a flu vaccine. You probably know that getting a vaccine can hurt \u2014 but it's usually worth it. A vaccine contains dead or altered forms of germs that normally cause a disease, such as flu or measles. The germs in vaccines have been inactivated or weakened so they can no longer cause illness, but are still \"noticed\" by the immune system.\r\n\r\nThey stimulate the immune system to produce chemicals that can kill the\u00a0actual<\/em>\u00a0germs if they enter the body, thus preventing future disease. How was such an ingenious way to prevent disease discovered? The short answer is more than two centuries of science.\r\n
\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_40\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"236\"]\"A Figure 1.2.2 A young child in Bangladesh is covered with skin lesions from smallpox. Until it was eradicated, this highly contagious infection caused many deaths, and those that survived were often severely scarred for life.<\/em>[\/caption]\r\n

Science as Process<\/h1>\r\n<\/div>\r\nYou may think of [pb_glossary id=\"5809\"]science[\/pb_glossary]<\/strong> as a large and detailed body of knowledge, but science is also the process by which this knowledge is obtained.\u00a0Science\u00a0uses\u00a0experimentation, evidence, and logic to continuously test ideas. Over time and through repeated experimentation\u00a0and testing, scientific knowledge advances.\r\n\r\nWe've been accumulating knowledge of vaccines for more than two centuries.\u00a0The discovery of the first vaccine, as well as the process of vaccination, dates back to 1796. An English doctor named Edward Jenner<\/a> observed that people who became infected with cowpox did not get sick from smallpox, a similar but much more severe disease (Figure 1.2.2). Jenner decided to transmit cowpox to a young boy to see if it would protect him from smallpox. He gave the boy cowpox by scratching liquid from cowpox sores into the boy's skin. Then, six weeks later, he scratched liquid from smallpox sores into the boy's skin. As Jenner predicted, the boy did not get sick from smallpox. Jenner had discovered the first vaccine, although additional testing was needed to show that it really was effective.\r\n\r\nAlmost a century passed before the next vaccine was discovered, a vaccine for cholera in 1879. Around the same time, French chemist Louis Pasteur<\/a> found evidence that many human diseases are caused by germs, which earned\u00a0him\u00a0the title of \"father of germ theory.\" Since Pasteur's time, vaccines have been discovered for scores of additional diseases caused by germs, and scientists are currently researching vaccines for many others.\r\n
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Benefits of Science<\/h1>\r\n<\/div>\r\nMedical advances such as the discovery of vaccines are one of the most important benefits of science, but science and scientific knowledge are also crucial for most other human endeavors. Science is needed to design safe cars, predict storms, control\u00a0global warming, develop new technologies of many kinds, help couples have children, and put humans on the moon. Clearly, the diversity of applications of scientific knowledge is vast!\r\n\r\n \r\n
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1.2 Summary<\/span><\/h1>\r\n<\/header>\r\n
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