Final Reflection

As time goes on, so does life. Everything evolves to be a better form of itself in an attempt to survive. Along with the evolution of time and space, as human beings, we also evolve mentally. We think and speak differently over time. We gain experience and base our answers, thoughts, and practices on what we have learned. Looking back at my first reflective post, on Umbrellaology, my definition of science remains the same: knowledge. Whether it be to obtain information, to discover new information, or even to gain insight on a subject, one adds on to existing knowledge or, simply, becomes more knowledgable.  However, who can be considered a scientist is still a bit hazy to me. 

Throughout the course of STP, we have created experiments, speculated on possible reasons/outcomes of events, we established variables, basically carrying out the whole scientific method. With that being said, anyone who carries out the scientific method, searching to prove something and not to just demonstrate something that has been proven before, would that qualify them as a scientist? Do they have to have some sort of credentials, whether it be a degree, a sophisticated position, etc? What is a scientist? Like dark matter and dark energy, it's easier to say what isn't science or who isn't a scientist than to say what science is or who a scientist is/does.

To tackle this, I look at what has gone on this semester with STP and think back to what we have done to go about the very fundamental pillar of science: the scientific method. The mutual agreement I made with myself about what or who a scientist is boils down to some basic requirements: they follow the scientific method when trying to prove/disprove something, they have some sort of credentials or passion that would then allow then to be open minded and unbiased, and they go out of their way to make sure they are knowledgable and have people to keep them in check (like scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals and papers). 

Looking up Facebook posts or reading some Webmd or Mayo Clinic articles does not make one a scientist. The term "scientist" is still ambiguous for me, but if I had to boil it down, it all starts with the person's intentions and purpose for doing things or seeking information.

As a scientist-in-training, this makes me think of my own intentions, the process behind finding answers, but also how I view and judge information I find. To seek, process, and apply newly found information, i.e what to do with it once a discovery has been made, is a recurring theme in trying to define what makes a scientist a scientist. I don't think there is a solid definition- just basic requirements that only scratch the surface of how we interpret people who seek knowledge.