How to think about science

As graduate students, we spend a lot of time thinking about science. But we tend to concentrate on the "how-to", the minutiae of daily experiments. Rarely do we concern ourself with the "why". Once in a while experiments work, and we're confronted with something unexpected and we begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together to form a coherent model of reality. This part is what most people would identify as the core of the scientific process. Yet we spend surprisingly little time thinking about epistemology. Do our model reflect reality, or do we impose our biased mental framework onto natural phenomena. What does it mean to do science, is it about the experiments or the theory? Recently I've stumbled upon a series of podcast exploring these types of questions with interviews of prominent figures in ethics, philosophy, history and science which examine science in a social and philosophical perspective. I highly recommend this CBC podcast (Ideas) and particularly this series of interviews "how to think about science". You may not agree with all that is said, but it will make you reconsider many aspects of science which we take for granted.... Here is the roster:

Episode 1 - November 14 - Simon Schaffer
Episode 2 - November 21 - Lorraine Daston
Episode 3 - November 28 - Margaret Lock
Episode 4 - December 5 - Ian Hacking and Andrew Pickering
Episode 5 - December 12 - Ulrich Beck and Bruno Latour
Episode 6 - January 2 - James Lovelock
Episode 7 - January 9 - Arthur Zajonc
Episode 8 - January 16 - Wendell Berry
Episode 9 - January 23 - Rupert Sheldrake
Episode 10 - January 30 - Brian Wynne