Science (from
scientia, Latin for "knowledge")
has come to mean a body of knowledge, or a method of study devoted to
developing this body of
knowledge, concerning the
universe gained through methodological
observation and
experimentation. The
scientific method consists of different principles and procedures that
are useful in acquiring scientific knowledge. Exactly what constitutes
science and scientific methods are subjects studied by the
philosophy of science.
Science or rather scientific laws and theories rest upon certain
assumptions. One principle in particular is
induction. Induction is a presupposition that the sequence of events
in the future will occur as they always have in the past or that things in
the universe will always act in the same way under the same conditions.
For example, by induction the theory of gravity implies that a rock,
thrown into the air with less than
escape velocity will always fall back down just as other objects
thrown into the sky have done in the past. It is by the assumption of
induction that a scientific law or theory derives its primary strength to
predict future events and explain past ones. The philosopher
David Hume first attacked this assumption in what is known as the
problem of induction.
Implicit in science's devotion to acquiring knowledge about the
universe is an assumption that there is a reality that exists independent
of a mind (or minds) perceiving it. This view,
realism, holds that the universe (atoms, animals, gravity, stars,
wind, microbes, etc.) exists independent of our observation. Under this
view, the (approximate)
truth of scientific knowledge is taken at face value.
Some of the findings of science under this view can be quite
extraordinary to a non-scientific mind in light of every day common
observation. Atomic theory, for example, implies that a granite boulder
which appears as heavy, hard, solid, grey, etc. is actually a combination
of subatomic
particles moving very rapidly in an area consisting mostly of empty
space.
Philosophers sometimes distinguish between the actual reality of things
within the universe, which may or may not be fully perceivable by humans,
and our perception of things within the universe.
Immanuel Kant coined the phrases
phenomena (the universe as humans experience it) and
noumena[?] (things-in-themselves).
Realism, however, is not necessary to science.
Instrumentalism[?], for example, posits that while entities, such as
atoms, help explain and predict data from experiments, these entities
do not necessarily exist. This approach is favored by some when it comes
to committing to the ontological status of a scientific entity which may
seem
unobservable[?] in principle.
In contrast to Kant's views (and despite wide acceptance that human
perception of phenomena is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the
universe as it really is), most scientists assert that it is possible to
understand and accurately explain (at least somewhat if not fully) the
universe using the scientific method to hone accurate scientific theories
and laws.
Scientists point out that while some people criticise the basic ideas
of science, it is science alone that has provided information on the
mysteries of the atom, the cell, the solar system, and the observable
universe. It is science alone that has provided knowledge to develop tens
of thousands of technological advances in medicine, engineering,
communications and beyond. No other system which claims to compete with
science has ever actually succeeded in actually producing useful
information about the physical world in which we live.
Until
the Enlightenment, the word "science" (or its Latin cognate) meant any
systematic or exact, recorded knowledge (and the word continues to be used
in this sense sometimes). "Science" therefore had the same sort of very
broad meaning that "philosophy"
had at that time.
There was a distinction between, for example, "natural science" and
"moral science," which latter included what we now call philosophy, and
this mirrored a distinction between "natural philosophy" and "moral
philosophy." More recently, "science" has come to be restricted to what
used to be called "natural science" or "natural philosophy," and further
distinctions have been drawn within it, such as physical science,
biological science, and social science.
Fields of study are often distinguished in terms of hard sciences and
soft science. Physics, chemistry, biology and geology are all forms of
hard sciences. They rely solely on the scientific method. Studies of
history and sociology are sometimes called "soft science".
Mathematics is widely believed to be a science, but it is not. It is
more closely related to
Logic; it is not a science because it makes no attempt to gain
empirical knowledge. However, mathematics is the universal language of
all sciences.
The term "science" is sometimes pressed into service for new and
interdisciplinary fields that make use of scientific methods at least
in part, and which in any case aspire to be systematic and careful
explorations of their subjects, including
computer science,
library and information science, and
environmental science.
Mathematics and
computer science reside under "Q" in the
Library of Congress classification, along with all else we now call
science.
One of the key differences between religion and science is that
scientists are willing (and sometimes, enthusiastic) to change their
beliefs when new facts and compelling logic are presented. This subject is
discussed in the article
The relationship between religion and science.
Organization and practice of science:
International Council of Science (ICSU)
See
History of Science and Technology for an understanding of how these
fields came to be. See also
scientists for catalogs of people active in each of these fields.
See also:
Junk science,
Logic of scientific discovery[?],
Pseudoscience,
Protoscience,
Pathological science,
Scientific misconduct
- Alphabetized and ordered list of sciences adapted from the
Internet-Encyclopedia article, "Science"
Internet-Encyclopedia March 14, 2003 (http://www.internet-encyclopedia.info/wiki.phtml?title=Science)
