Sheep

How many sheep do you see in the poster? 6? How many eyes on the sheep? 12? How many legs? 24? This poster represents a scientific view of nature. At a deep level, everything seems connected and everything seems orderly. There are 6 sheep, 12 eyes, 24 legs … or should that be 25?

No, definitely 24.

When scientists look at the world, they see patterns. Based on those patterns, they write laws and make predictions. Suppose there were 10 sheep in the field, how many legs do you predict then? Hey, you work it out!

But supposing one day, you are looking into the field and you realise that one of the sheep is different. No one else has spotted it. Maybe it’s not worth worrying about; maybe it means you’ve made a mistake, but then again, maybe it means that the next Nobel prize for science has your name on it.

So which is the odd sheep?

Look at the tails and think outside the box.

Think outside the yellow box. Look at the tails again.

Spotted it?

Of course you did, there’s a great scientist in all of us.

Sally and Simon

In life we all make assumptions. We assume the sun will rise in the morning, we assume the ground is solid under our feet, we assume the stars are too far above our heads to touch. What did you assume when you looked at the poster? Ah, nearly gave it all away, but we’ll come back to Sally and Simon in a moment.

Science is a great way to test assumptions and sometimes the results it produces are surprising. We now know that the sun does not rise – instead the earth rotates. The ground is not solid under our feet – instead our feet are pushed up by the forces of a zillion charged particles. The stars … ok, one out of three. The stars are definitely too far above us to touch!

Some people think that science is so amazing it can test every idea we have. But there are some ideas that are beyond science to test. For example, science cannot tell us whether or not God exists. Hmm. maybe that’s why some scientists believe in God and some don’t!

OK, back to what happened to Simon and Sally. What assumptions did you make when you read their story – did you assume that Sally and Simon are human? You did? Actually, they’re goldfish and shortly before their lives ended, they were swimming around in a glass bowl, on a wobbly table by a window and the wind was blowing in through the window … with a fearsome force. Now do you know how Sally and Simon died.

Science or Religion… or both?