How? or Why?

[C1ay]

BTW, shouldn't 'What' be a candidate here?

What was that bright flash in the sky?
What is that fossil you've found?
What happens inside a black hole?
What is the entropy of such a system?
etc.....

[Fishteacher73]

There are places where how and why are essentailly the same. Those that do not allow how to parallel why, why becomes a philisophical question. Science is about how thing operate, not why.

[DigitaLMasteR_Alex]

Originally Posted by C1ay

BTW, shouldn't 'What' be a candidate here?
etc.....

I totally agree, "what" should be included

I think that scientists use a collection of questions that are totally dependent on each other, as every question answer leads to another question to be answered

It usually starts by " what is "something"?" or " what to do on "something"?!"
the next question is then "why is it "something"?" or " why to do "something"?"
then the last question is "how to do "something"?"

This is somehow the general form of questions "in my point of view", because it's conventional for a scientist to wonder about a particular subject and to figure out if it's worth working on it, if it does, the scientist will try to find out how to work on this thing

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by Fishteacher73

Science is about how thing operate, not why.

Why is the sky blue?

[orbsycli]

yeah but that question can be replaced with something like "what causes the sky to be blue" which can be answered.

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by orbsycli

yeah but that question can be replaced with something like "what causes the sky to be blue" which can be answered.

'What' is still not 'How' but 'Why is the sky blue?' can be answered with changing it to anything, it is a valid science question as written.

[orbsycli]

hmmm well i'm stumped. *DUNCE

[Fishteacher73]

You get the same answer with" how is the sky blue?" as with "why is the sky blue?" so they are essentailly equivilant in this instance. Howerevr they are not alway as such. Take evolution. "How do we evolve" is a very different question as to "why do we evolve?" Science is not concerned with why we evolve, it is a philosophical question.Science is concerned with the mechanisms involved.

[orbsycli]

that's what I was saying! i know other questions won't fit the replacement, but that one did.

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by orbsycli

that's what I was saying! i know other questions won't fit the replacement, but that one did.

It goes both ways. Why can't you mix hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide together? Of course you could also ask 'What happens if you mix hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide together?'. You could probably think of a 'How' way to word this as well but the 'Why' gets to the point just fine. The terms are basically interchangeable in many cases with the only difference being a grammatical preference.