Juan Luis Arsuaga, paleontologist: "Science is a method that guarantees that any scientific question will be answered someday".

Juan Luis Arsuaga gave a lecture the University of Navarra to explain to students the essence of science and the work scientist. He was invited by the Chair AgroChair at the School of Science, Juan Luis Arsuaga delivered the 11th Albareda Lecture and stated: “Science is not an activity, an attitude, nor is it a vision or a temperament. Science is a method that guarantees that any question, provided it is scientific, can and will be answered someday,” he stated. “A researcher someone who uses the scientific method as tool. When we write an article or a paper, we are using that method.”  

Going back to the scientific revolution of the Baroque, Arsuaga pointed out that research today is guide because of the mechanistic vision of science of the late 16th century promoted by Descartes, Galileo and Newton, among others, and which sees the world as a machine subject to laws, whose behavior is therefore predictable and can be formulated in mathematical terms. "The world can be understood, we can predict result, because there are laws that govern it and the scientist's work is to find out what those laws are," he added.
 

With this approach, Arsuaga urged today’s and tomorrow’s scientists—the more than 400 attendees gathered in the auditorium the School of Science—to tackle the challenges the future presents, such as the development artificial intelligence or discovering how the human brain and mind work, by applying the scientific method.“Why do we get sick? Why do we die? It’s only a matter of time before the scientific method solves these questions,” he stated. 

Full Professor of Paleontology at the Complutense University of Madrid and director scientist of the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos, Juan Luis Arsuaga has received at the University of Navarra the award Pasión por la Ciencia, which is submission at framework of the #LabMeCrazy! Science Film Festival. 

Born in Madrid in 1954, Arsuaga holds a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid, where he is Full Professor Paleontology in the School of Science . He currently directs the UCM-Carlos III Health Institute Joint Center for Human Evolution and Behavior; serves as director of the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos; and co-directs excavations at the Neanderthal sites in Pinilla del Valle (Madrid). Most of his degree program has been spent at the sites in the Sierra de Atapuerca, project won the award of Asturias award for research and Technical research in 1997.