What is the point of science? Answers
Dr Alice Roberts sometimes appears on TV in science programmes.
So what? – an informal expression used to mean ‘why should I worry about this?’ or ‘why should I care?’, ‘it’s not significant or important’, ‘I don’t care / I’m not going to do anything about it’. Eg "So what if it rains? We can still enjoy ourselves!" = it will not matter if it rains…. ‘Everyone else enjoys parties – why don’t you?’ ‘So what? I don’t!" = "What difference does that make? / It doesn’t change anything as far as I am concerned!"
1 The fact that she 1) was always interested as a child in how things worked (she was ‘one of those children that liked to pull things apart and couldn’t always put things back together again’), 2) loved biology as a subject and 3) was interested in how bodies, the human body in particular, worked.
2 1) Finding out information 2) One ‘where there was a real contribution to be made as well’.
3 The way (the) knowledge translates into having an impact on people’s quality of lives / the quality of people’s lives, and saving lives as well.
Alice makes a slip here (a slip is a small mistake). We would say people’s quality of life but the quality of people’s lives.
4 People’s scientific investigations and experiments.
5 It has created all sorts of things that make our lives (perhaps) easier and communication easier also. At a more fundamental level it improves our quality of life and our length of life (i.e.longevity).
outcome – noun – usually singular – a result or effect of an action, situation, etc. Eg Greg’s had some medical tests done – but it’s too early to know what the outcomes of them are.
6 She says 1) she is not just talking about a veneer of science on the top of society, 2) that science can be life-saving, 3) it can have a huge impact on people’s quality of life and 4) it is fundamental to us.
veneer – noun – 1) a thin layer of wood, plastic, etc, used to cover a cheaper material – eg The bookcase is made of thin plastic with a wood veneer.2) surface, or something superficial, covering what is actually underneath which might be unwanted, or unpleasant. Eg The clinic looks very well-run, but if you look beneath the veneer, its finances are badly run, and the staff are often unpleasant.
7 Oddly.
phenomenon – noun – plural phenomena – something that exists and can be seen, felt, tasted, etc., especially something which is unusual or interesting.
8a) Because a) it has become lifted out of society somehow over the course of the 20th century and therefore b) we need to put it back in again.
9 It is well placed to do something.
10 To show (people) a) there is a real-life outcome to the experiments that are going on in laboratories, and b) to the ideas that people have; c) that someone’s life is saved or d) that someone now has a much better quality of life.
11 That it will just make people more aware of the link between science as a subject and the importance of science. They will be more interested in science, and more engaged in what it achieves.
12 That more children (i.e. than at present) will become interested in science at school and that ‘hopefully’ (= it is to be hoped) more and more people will do science as a career.