Question: What is it about humans that led to us inventing science? What was the most important evolutionary change?Also what is your most important personality trait that helps you practice science?

Freya Harrison answered on 23 Mar 2010:

Oh my goodness, you could probably write a whole book about why humans invented science! I’ll do my best to try to answer with my own interpretation. I think something that really marks humans out as ‘different’ is the extent to which we modify our environment and make tools to help us do this. It’s interesting because we don’t have adaptations that let us use our bodies to alter the environment directly (like moles have claws for digging or weaver ants make glue to stick their nests together), but what we do have is the ability to design and create tools from materials like stone, wood or metal to do the work for us. Other animals can use tools too – other apes and also crows are good at this – but their tools are nowhere near as sophisticated and specialised as ours.

I think there are three things that allow us to do this. The first is our phsyical ability to manipulate small objects – our hands and inparticular our opposable thumbs, which were free to become specialised for holding and moving things once we had evolved to stand upright on our feet rather than using our hands for moving about. The second is our brain and its ability to do abstract tasks like imagining 3D objects and use logic to think “if I do A, then B will happen.” The third is our ability to learn from each other and to understand what other people are trying to do, using sophisticated communication (being able to talk about those abstract ideas is a big factor here). If you see someone making a tool for a particular job, you can learn how to make that tool. more importantly, because of the way your mind works, you understand what the person is trying to achieve – they’re not just trying to make, say, an axe, they’re trying to make something that will cut wood. And the knowledge means that you can modify their design to make it better suited to the job and so the tool improves as more people modify it.

So what I’m leading to with all this is that science is a tool, or perhaps a way of making more tools, that requires these three characteristics to work. To invent science, a species needs a brain that works in a certain way and also a body that works in a certain way. Also our responses to other evolutionary pressures can determine whether we have the right “starting point” – like how evolving to stand on two legs left our front feet free to evolve into hands.

The most important personality trait for practising science.. well, I guess creativity and an enquiringmind are important, but sheer determination and pig-headedness can be vital in making sure you keep going despite setbacks 😀