Science and Inquiry discussion

Hello Everyone,
There doesn't appear to be much activity in this group, so I thought I'd throw out a question for everyone and see what happens:

What is your favorite branch or field of science and why?

For me this is a tough question because I love many of them. I think I'd have to go with Astrophysics/Cosmology as my favorite though. I love reading about the Universe, especially different theories about how it formed and where it's headed in the future.

A tough question for me, too. (And let's have lots of responses!)

I agree with Samuel's choice of Astrophysics and Cosmology, but I am also intrigued by the very small: Particle Physics and the Uncertainty Principle. But Biology and Zoology and what used to be called Natural History are also fascinating. I think my real answer, from my decidedly unscientific mind, is almost any branch of science inhabited by folks who are excited by their field and can write about it with grace and clarity. Neil deGrasse Tyson and the late Stephen Jay Gould come immediately to mind.

I'm mostly interested in the history of scientific thought and method and less in any particular field. I do love Stephen Jay Gould. I also like reading old dead folk like Newton and Galileo. Neuroscience is fun. Professionally, I do applied statistics, and I work mostly with folks from the social sciences and neurosciences (working within a biopsychosocial paradigm).

I most like the history of science (I was trained as a historian, so what a surprise that is - not!), but I can find just about any individual science interesting if the writer is good. For physics it will have to be the "less math" version (I am abysmal at math), but that seems like the only real restriction.

Love anything by Steven Jay Gould (my mother let me subscribe to Natural History magazine, which ran his articles regularly, at age ten), especially Wonderful Life.

In general, though, I prefer "why" to "what", so I like stuff like cosmology or trying to figure out what killed the dinosaurs, or solving the mystery of how a great disease spreads.

I'll have to agree that good writing makes me a fan of any branch of science. My interests lean toward the biological. I don't think I could ever tire of reading about spiders or deep-sea creatures. I love learning the history of the "natural sciences" as well (even in fiction - shout out to Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever). I've recently been searching out writing on genetics and medical history. I'd love suggestions for genetics books; my depth of knowledge is shallow, but my interest is deep.

I would definitely agree with Susanna about being interested in the "why" rather than the "what."

I would say that I have a general interest in many science topics. My favorite topics would be astronomy, and applications of cell biology (since I have a degree in that). I mostly enjoy materials that have interesting angles for teaching science. I teach to middle school students and I find that interesting stories help to keep their attention. I am a big science fiction fan too so any fun stories related to science too. Favorites would be the late Carl Sagan, Jared Diamond, Carl Zimmer, and Neil Tyson to name a few.

I would say that I have a general interest in many science topics. My favorite topics would be astronomy, and applications of cell biology (since I have a degree in that). I mostly enjoy materials that have interesting angles for teaching science. I teach to middle school students and I find that interesting stories help to keep their attention. I am a big science fiction fan too so any fun stories related to science too. Favorites would be the late Carl Sagan, Jared Diamond, Carl Zimmer, and Neil Tyson to name a few.

I would say that I have a general interest in many science topics. My favorite topics would be astronomy, and applications of cell biology (since I have a degree in that). I mostly enjoy materials that have interesting angles for teaching science. I teach to middle school students and I find that interesting stories help to keep their attention. I am a big science fiction fan too so any fun stories related to science too. Favorites would be the late Carl Sagan, Jared Diamond, Carl Zimmer, and Neil Tyson to name a few.

I would say that I have a general interest in many science topics. My favorite topics would be astronomy, and applications of cell biology (since I have a degree in that). I mostly enjoy materials that have interesting angles for teaching science. I teach to middle school students and I find that interesting stories help to keep their attention. I am a big science fiction fan too so any fun stories related to science too. Favorites would be the late Carl Sagan, Jared Diamond, Carl Zimmer, and Neil Tyson to name a few.

I agree with the other commenters - I have a general interest in all of the sciences, though I tend to read the most about biology, geology, and environmental science.

I am definitely in the biology camp. I tend to gravitate to evolutionary biology and to epidemiology/disease (there have been some particularly good histories of diseases published recently).

Definately biology - especially evolutionary biology and mammalogy. But anything zoological catches my interest.

Hooray! Certainly: _Astrobiology_, _Astronomy_, _Archaeoastronomy_, _Cosmology_, 'Physics; Fundamentals of Biology, Botany, _Chronobiology_, _Virology_; Fundamentals of Chemistry, Biochemistry; a little bit of Geology, Computer Science, _Neuroscience_ and Social Science; a rather in-depth study of Nuclear Physics and Mathematics is required for my next hobby-project -- after I complete the current science and non-science-related projects, of course; and Philosophy of Science!

Note: The favorite fields are outwardly underlined.

I'm with Susanna on the "History of Science" choice.

What I really, really love is learning how different advances and discoveries came about: motivations, processes, the people behind the discovery, etc. on different branches of science.

I don't find the sciences as such, as mere scientific fact (the "what") quite as interesting (though I'm a sucker for freaky and useless tidbits of info, such as Gross's atrial well).