Letters to a Young Scientist

Chapter 4 begins with a painting of Charles Darwin.

Wilson examines what exactly science is and why it is so significant. In his view, it is “the most effective way ever conceived of acquiring factual knowledge” (60). To illustrate the scientific process of making and then testing a hypothesis, Wilson describes one of his own famous experiments. When an ant dies, its nestmates carry its body to a designated waste storage area. Wilson hypothesized that ants determine that another ant has died by smelling the compounds released as the body decomposes. He tested this hypothesis by making a small artificial ant out of paper and treating it with the decomposition chemical. As he expected, the other ants assumed the paper doll was a dead ant and brought it outside. Wilson went one step further, mostly because he thought the result would be funny: He put the compound on a living ant, and sure enough, the other ants picked it up and carried it away. It was able to return only after it had cleaned itself, eliminating the smell of decomposition. 

The scientific method starts with the scientist asking a question about the world. They then come up with a potential answer, which is their hypothesis.