Science is not so much a subject as a way of thinking, a world view, technically known as a “Weltanschauung”: it is based on the idea of knowing things rather than believing things: it’s a matter of fact, not of opinion. There are drawbacks to this: many scientists may ignore what they don’t have proof of when it is self-evidently true, on the other hand superstitions and beliefs and opinions can colour our thinking in the most extra-ordinary way: willow bark was used for centuries as a pain-reliever: now it’s known as aspirin!!

Science is about hypotheses, induction and deduction and this was of course popularised by Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes books based on the work of Joseph bell, the Edinburgh forensic pathologist: evidence gives rise to a final answer: a deduction.

Maths is the language of science. Science as a word was coined in 1833 by the British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Association of Science as a reaction against the “conservative” attitudes of the Royal Society whose incumbents referred to themselves as “natural philosophers” or philosophers of nature: Isaac Newton would have referred to himself as such.

Maths, chemistry, biology, psychology, physics are all parts of science although they are examined separately, but they all form the same body of knowledge which uses maths as the means of communication itself.

The key for students of science is to understand the “generalist” nature of the subject of science itself (in the sense that we have GPs and “specialists or consultants), its underlying rationale and the methodology of collection of empirical (experimentally obtained) evidence and the specific areas of study it relates to.

Many people have confused science with dreadfully cruel experiments and suchlike: my training was in ethical science, then known as Christian science; that science is not intended to be cruel but to enlighten man in the ways of the universe.