Graham Leggett is a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Sheffield, with research interests that cross the boundaries between chemistry, physics and biology. For more information visit my UoS web page.
What science can and cannot do
Professional scientists often have a comparatively unreflective approach to science: they do science, but rarely think about how it works, and what makes it special – or indeed whether it is special at all.
These pages are designed to explore in a little more detail the ideas introduced in lectures on scientific method that I give to our first year students. Given the challenges presented by the climate emergency, the Covid-19 pandemic and other events, we need more than ever to understand the role of science in society: which questions can science help us to answer, and what are its limits?
Science and Non-Science 