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

Juan Luis Arsuaga has given a lecture at the University of Navarra willing to show students what is the essence of science and what is the work of the scientist. Invited by the chair Timac Agro of the Faculty of Science, Juan Luis Arsuaga has starred in the XI Albareda Lecture and has assured: "Science is not an activity, an attitude, nor is it a vision or a temperament. Science is a method that guarantees that any question, as long as it is scientific, can be and will be answered one day", he assured. "A researcher is nothing more than one who employs the scientific method as a tool. When we write an article, a paper, we are using the method."  

Going back to the scientific revolution of the Baroque, Arsuaga pointed out that research today is guided by the mechanistic vision of science of the late 16th century promoted by Descartes, Galileo and Newton, among others, 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 the result, because there are laws that govern it and the scientist's job is to find out what those laws are," he added.
 

With this approach, Arsuaga urged the scientists of today and tomorrow, the more than 400 attendees present in the auditorium of the Faculty of Sciences, to address the challenges of the future, such as the development of artificial intelligence or discovering how the brain or the human mind works, applying the scientific method. "Why do we get sick, why do we die? It is only a matter of time before the scientific method solves it," he said. 

Professor of Paleontology at the Complutense University of Madrid and scientific director of the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos, Juan Luis Arsuaga has received at the University of Navarra the Passion for Science Award, which is presented as part of the #LabMeCrazy! Science Film Festival. 

Born in Madrid in 1954, Arsuaga holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid, where he is Professor of Paleontology in the Faculty of Geological Sciences. He currently directs the Joint UCM-Carlos III Institute of Health Center for Human Evolution and Behavior; is Scientific Director of the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos; and co-directs the excavations of the Neanderthal sites of Pinilla del Valle (Madrid). Most of his scientific career has been spent at the sites of the Sierra de Atapuerca, a project that won the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research in 1997.