Science: Do It Yourself — LessWrong
In the nerd community, we have lots of warm, fuzzy associations around 'science'. And, of course, science is indeed awesome. But, seeing how awesome science is, shouldn't we try to have more of it in our lives? When was the last time we did an experiment to test a theory? Here, I will try to introduce a technique which I have found to be very useful. It is based on the classical scientific method, but I call it "DIY Science", to distinguish it from university science. The point of DIY Science is that science is not that hard to do, and can be used to answer practical questions as well as abstract ones. Particle physics looks hard to do, since you need expensive, massive accelerators and magnets and stuff. However, fortunately, some of the fields in which it is easiest to do science are some of the most practical and interesting. Anyone smart and rational can start doing science right now, from their home computer. One of the key ingredients of DIY Science is to discard the more useless