Whys

I don't think whys is a real word, it looks like the name of a welsh village (I guess reasons would be the proper word, but it doesn't convey the same sense of having lots of questions, rather than answers/motives).
So for my early posts I will try and explain some of my whys; why I find things interesting and why they might interest you.
I think everyone wants to convey their interests, at least their acceptable ones, not truly bizzare fetishes. You secretly think your interests should interest everyone else, even if you might be tactful enough not to press them upon people. And as my interests are the foundation of this site, I figure I'll lay them out clearly to begin with.

Number 1: Science...

Science is interesting because it's everything. Or it describes everything. Sort of everything; everything that makes sense, that can be proved. And it's making sense of everything.
It always fascinates me that people wouldn't be interested in making sense, and that people can live without fascination.

OK, so history might make sense of the past, and fiction might make sense out of stories, and art might make sense of experience. But science can make sense of everything that follows any logic, and almost everything does. And the kind of sense that science makes is real, solid, testable and provable sense, not fleeting and subjective like the rest of human culture.
I fear I have overused the word sense, so that it's not crystal clear what it means now. But my point is simple: science is sensible; it's the best way of knowing things and trying things.
Being sensible sounds boring, but really science, as a whole, is exciting, because it's a process of discovery, of making the unknown known. And the unknown is everywhere.

Technology also interests me, but I don't think people should equate it with science. Technology relies on science of course, but even as marvellous as the tools we can make are, they are not the point of science. The science is the enlightened bit, where we figure out what's going on and what's possible. Only then can we deicide what we want to do with these possibilities, what the technology will be for, how we can make money out of it, control people with it, enrich our culture with it... Without science we're stuck, making changes blindly. For example, as politics generally ignores science, it gets stuck making endless changes and the same old bad policies (another topic for another post).

So why would you not be interested in science?

Pic from http://blog.sciencegeekgirl.com