Science (from
Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes
knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the
universe.
In an older and closely related meaning, "science" also refers to a
body of knowledge itself, of the type that can be rationally explained
and reliably applied. A practitioner of science is known as a
scientist.
Since
classical antiquity, science as a type of knowledge has been closely linked to
philosophy. In the
early modern period the words "science" and "philosophy of nature" were sometimes used interchangeably. By the 17th century,
natural philosophy (which is today called "
natural science") was considered a separate branch of
philosophy.
In modern usage, "science" most often refers to a way of pursuing
knowledge, not only the knowledge itself. It is also often restricted to
those branches of study that seek to explain the phenomena of the
material universe. In the 17th and 18th centuries scientists
increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of
laws of nature such as
Newton's laws of motion. And over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" became increasingly associated with the
scientific method itself, as a disciplined way to study the natural world, including
physics,
chemistry,
geology and
biology. It is in the 19th century also that the term
scientist was created by the naturalist-theologian
William Whewell to distinguish those who sought knowledge on nature from those who sought other types of knowledge.
However, "science" has also continued to be used in a broad sense
denoting reliable, teachable knowledge about a topic, as in modern terms
like
library science or
computer science. This is also reflected in the names of some areas of academic study such as "
social science" or "
political science".
The scale of the universe mapped to the branches of science and the hierarchy of science.
History and philosophy
History
Science in a broad sense existed before the
modern era, and in many historical
civilizations, but
modern science is so distinct in its
approach and successful in its
results
that it now defines what science is in the strictest sense of the term.
Much earlier than the modern era, another important turning point was
the development of classical
natural philosophy in the ancient Greek-speaking world.
Pre-philosophical
Science in its original sense is a word for a type of knowledge (
Latin scientia,
Ancient Greek epistemē),
rather than a specialized word for the pursuit of such knowledge. In
particular it is one of the types of knowledge which people can
communicate to each other and share. For example, knowledge about the
working of natural things was gathered long before recorded history and
led to the development of complex abstract thinking, as shown by the
construction of complex calendars, techniques for making poisonous
plants edible, and buildings such as the pyramids. However no consistent
conscientious distinction was made between knowledge of such things
which are true in every community, and other types of communal knowledge
such as mythologies and legal systems.
Philosophical study of nature
Before the invention or discovery of the
concept of "
nature" (
Ancient Greek phusis), by the
Pre-Socratic philosophers, the same words tend to be used to describe the
natural
"way" in which a plant grows, and the "way" in which, for example, one
tribe worships a particular god. For this reason it is claimed these men
were the first philosophers in the strict sense, and also the first
people to clearly distinguish "nature" and "convention". Science was
therefore distinguished as the knowledge of nature, and the things which
are true for every community, and the name of the specialized pursuit
of such knowledge was philosophy — the realm of the first
philosopher-physicists. They were mainly speculators or
theorists, particularly interested in
astronomy. In contrast, trying to use knowledge of nature to imitate nature (artifice or
technology, Greek
technē) was seen by classical scientists as a more appropriate interest for lower class artisans.
Philosophical turn to human things
A major turning point in the history of early philosophical science was the controversial but successful attempt by
Socrates
to apply philosophy to the study of human things, including human
nature, the nature of political communities, and human knowledge itself.
He criticized the older type of study of physics as too purely
speculative, and lacking in self-criticism. He was particularly
concerned that some of the early physicists treated nature as if it
could be assumed that it had no intelligent order, explaining things
merely in terms of motion and matter.
The study of human things had been the realm of mythology and tradition, and Socrates was executed.
Aristotle later created a less controversial systematic programme of Socratic philosophy, which was
teleological,
and human-centred. He rejected many of the conclusions of earlier
scientists. For example in his physics the sun goes around the earth,
and many things have it as part of their nature that they are for
humans. Each thing has a
formal cause and
final cause and a role in the rational cosmic order. Motion and change is described as the
actualization
of potentials already in things, according to what types of things they
are. While the Socratics insisted that philosophy should be used to
consider the practical question of the best way to live for a human
being (a study Aristotle divided into
ethics and
political philosophy), they did not argue for any other types of
applied science.
Aristotle maintained the sharp distinction between science and the
practical knowledge of artisans, treating theoretical speculation as the
highest type of human activity, practical thinking about good living as
something less lofty, and the knowledge of artisans as something only
suitable for the lower classes. In contrast to modern science,
Aristotle's influential emphasis was upon the "theoretical" steps of
deducing universal rules from raw data, and did not treat the gathering of experience and raw data as part of science itself.
Medieval science
During
late antiquity and the
early Middle Ages,
the Aristotelian approach to inquiries on natural phenomenon was used.
Some ancient knowledge was lost, or in some cases kept in obscurity,
during the fall of the Roman Empire and periodic political struggles.
However, the general fields of science, or
natural philosophy
as it was called, and much of the general knowledge from the ancient
world remained preserved though the works of the early Latin
encyclopedists like
Isidore of Seville. Also, in the
Byzantine empire, many Greek science texts were preserved in
Syriac
translations done by groups such as Nestorians and Monophysites. Many
of these were translated later on into Arabic under Islamic rule, during
which many types of classical learning were preserved and in some cases
improved upon. In the later medieval period, as science in Byzantium
and the Islamic world waned, Western Europeans began collecting ancient
texts from the Mediterranean, not only in Latin, but also in Greek,
Arabic, and Hebrew. Knowledge of ancient researchers such as Aristotle,
Ptolemy,
Euclid, amongst Catholic scholars, were recovered with renewed interest in diverse aspects of natural phenomenon. In Europe, men like
Roger Bacon
in England argued for more experimental science. By the late Middle
Ages, a synthesis of Catholicism and Aristotelianism known as
Scholasticism was flourishing in
Western Europe, which had become a new geographic center of science.
Renaissance, and early modern science
Galileo is considered one of the fathers of modern science.
By the late Middle Ages, especially in Italy there was an influx of Greek texts and scholars from the collapsing
Byzantine empire.
Copernicus formulated a
heliocentric model of the solar system unlike the
geocentric model of
Ptolemy's Almagest. All aspects of scholasticism were criticized in the 15th and 16th centuries; one author who was notoriously persecuted was
Galileo,
who made innovative use of experiment and mathematics. However the
persecution began after Pope Urban VIII blessed Galileo to write about
the Copernican system. Galileo had used arguments from the Pope and put
them in the voice of the simpleton in the work "Dialogue Concerning the
Two Chief World Systems" which caused great offense to him.
In Northern Europe, the new technology of the printing press was
widely used to publish many arguments including some that disagreed with
church
dogma.
René Descartes and
Francis Bacon
published philosophical arguments in favor of a new type of
non-Aristotelian science. Descartes argued that mathematics could be
used in order to study nature, as Galileo had done, and Bacon emphasized
the importance of experiment over contemplation. Bacon questioned the
Aristotelian concepts of formal cause and final cause, and promoted the
idea that science should study the laws of "simple" natures, such as
heat, rather than assuming that there is any specific nature, or "
formal cause", of each complex type of thing. This new modern science began to see itself as describing "
laws of nature". This updated approach to studies in nature was seen as
mechanistic. Bacon also argued that science should aim for the first time at practical inventions for the improvement of all human life.
Data from the famous
Michelson–Morley experiment
that refuted 19th century theory of light-bearing aether as the medium
that had to be a fluid in order to fill space, more rigid than steel in
order to support the high frequencies of light waves, as well as
massless and without viscosity or it would visibly affect the orbits of
planets.
Age of Enlightenment
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the project of modernity, as had been
promoted by Bacon and Descartes, led to rapid scientific advance and
the successful development of a new type of natural science,
mathematical, methodically experimental, and deliberately innovative.
Newton and
Leibniz succeeded in developing a new physics, now referred to as
Newtonian physics,
which could be confirmed by experiment and explained in mathematics.
Leibniz also incorporated terms from Aristotelian physics, but now being
used in a new non-teleological way, for example "
energy" and "
potential" (modern versions of Aristotelian "
energeia and potentia").
In the style of Bacon, he assumed that different types of things all
work according to the same general laws of nature, with no special
formal or final causes for each type of thing.
It is during this period that the word "science" gradually became more commonly used to refer to a
type of pursuit of a type of knowledge, especially knowledge of nature — coming close in meaning to the old term "
natural philosophy".
19th century
Both
John Herschel and
William Whewell systematized methodology: the latter coined the term
scientist. When
Charles Darwin published
On the Origin of Species he established
descent with modification as the prevailing
evolutionary explanation of biological complexity. His theory of
natural selection provided a natural explanation of how
species originated, but this only gained wide acceptance a century later.
John Dalton developed the idea of
atoms. The laws of
Thermodynamics and the
electromagnetic theory
were also established in the 19th century, which raised new questions
which could not easily be answered using Newton's framework.
20th century and beyond
Einstein's
Theory of Relativity and the development of
quantum mechanics
led to the replacement of Newtonian physics with a new physics which
contains two parts, that describe different types of events in nature.
The extensive use of scientific innovation during the wars of this
century, led to the
space race, increased life expectancy, and the
Nuclear arms race,
giving a widespread public appreciation of the importance of modern
science. More recently it has been argued that the ultimate purpose of
science is to make sense of human beings and our nature- for example in
his book
Consilience,
EO Wilson said "The human condition is the most important frontier of the natural sciences."
Jeremy Griffith supports this view.
Philosophy of science
John Locke
Working scientists usually take for granted a set of basic
assumptions that are needed to justify the scientific method: (1) that
there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers; (2) that
this objective reality is governed by natural laws; (3) that these laws
can be discovered by means of systematic observation and
experimentation. Philosophy of science seeks a deep understanding of
what these underlying assumptions mean and whether they are valid.
The belief that all observers share a common reality is known as
realism. It can be contrasted with
anti-realism,
the belief that there is no valid concept of absolute truth such that
things that are true for one observer are true for all observers. The
most commonly defended form of anti-realism is
idealism,
the belief that the mind or consciousness is the most basic essence,
and that each mind generates its own reality. In an idealistic
world-view, what is true for one mind need not be true for other minds.
There are different schools of thought in philosophy of science. The most popular position is
empiricism,
which claims that knowledge is created by a process involving
observation and that scientific theories are the result of
generalizations from such observations. Empiricism generally encompasses
inductivism,
a position that tries to explain the way general theories can be
justified by the finite number of observations humans can make and the
hence finite amount of empirical evidence available to confirm
scientific theories. This is necessary because the number of predictions
those theories make is infinite, which means that they cannot be known
from the finite amount of evidence using
deductive logic only. Many versions of empiricism exist, with the predominant ones being
bayesianism and the
hypothetico-deductive method.
Distinguished Men of Science. Use a cursor to see who is who.
Empiricism has stood in contrast to
rationalism, the position originally associated with
Descartes,
which holds that knowledge is created by the human intellect, not by
observation. A significant 20th-century version of rationalism is
critical rationalism, first defined by Austrian-British philosopher
Karl Popper.
Popper rejected the way that empiricism describes the connection
between theory and observation. He claimed that theories are not
generated by observation, but that observation is made in the light of
theories and that the only way a theory can be affected by observation
is when it comes in conflict with it. Popper proposed
falsifiability as the landmark of scientific theories, and
falsification
as the empirical method, to replace verifiability and induction by
purely deductive notions. Popper further claimed that there is actually
only one universal method, and that this method is not specific to
science: The negative method of criticism,
trial and error. It covers all products of the human mind, including science, mathematics, philosophy, and art
Another approach,
instrumentalism,
colloquially termed "shut up and calculate", emphasizes the utility of
theories as instruments for explaining and predicting phenomena. It
claims that scientific theories are black boxes with only their input
(initial conditions) and output (predictions) being relevant.
Consequences, notions and logical structure of the theories are claimed
to be something that should simply be ignored and that scientists
shouldn't make a fuss about (see
interpretations of quantum mechanics). Close to instrumentalism is
Constructivist epistemology according to which the main task of science is constructing
models that can be given input and will give you an output that will predict the output given by the reality under same conditions
accurately and
validly enough.
Paul K Feyerabend advanced the idea of
epistemological anarchism, which holds that there are no useful and exception-free
methodological rules governing the
progress of science or the growth of
knowledge,
and that the idea that science can or should operate according to
universal and fixed rules is unrealistic, pernicious and detrimental to
science itself. Feyerabend advocates treating science as an
ideology alongside others such as
religion,
magic and
mythology, and considers the dominance of science in society
authoritarian and unjustified. He also contended (along with
Imre Lakatos) that the
demarcation problem of distinguishing science from
pseudoscience
on objective grounds is not possible and thus fatal to the notion of
science running according to fixed, universal rules. Feyerabend also
stated that science does not have evidence for its philosophical
precepts, particularly the notion of
Uniformity of Law and the Uniformity of Process across time and space.
Finally, another approach often cited in debates of
scientific skepticism against controversial movements like "
scientific creationism", is
methodological naturalism. Its main point is that a difference between natural and
supernatural
explanations should be made, and that science should be restricted
methodologically to natural explanations. That the restriction is merely
methodological (rather than ontological) means that science should not
consider supernatural explanations itself, but should not claim them to
be wrong either. Instead, supernatural explanations should be left a
matter of personal belief outside the scope of science. Methodological
naturalism maintains that proper science requires strict adherence to
empirical study and
independent verification as a process for properly developing and evaluating explanations for
observable phenomena. The absence of these standards,
arguments from authority, biased
observational studies and other common
fallacies
are frequently cited by supporters of methodological naturalism as
criteria for the dubious claims they criticize not to be true science.
Certainty and science
DNA determines the genetic structure of all known life
A scientific theory is
empirical, and is always open to
falsification if new evidence is presented. That is, no theory is ever considered strictly
certain as science accepts the concept of
fallibilism. The philosopher of science
Karl Popper
sharply distinguishes truth from certainty. He writes that scientific
knowledge "consists in the search for truth", but it "is not the search
for certainty ... All human knowledge is fallible and therefore
uncertain."
New scientific knowledge rarely results in vast changes in our understanding. According to psychologist
Keith Stanovich,
it may be the media's overuse of words like "breakthrough" that leads
the public to imagine that science is constantly proving everything it
thought was true to be false. While there are such famous cases as the
theory of relativity
that required a complete reconceptualization, these are extreme
exceptions. Knowledge in science is gained by a gradual synthesis of
information from different experiments, by various researchers, across
different branches of science; it is more like a climb than a leap.
Theories vary in the extent to which they have been tested and verified,
as well as their acceptance in the scientific community. For example,
heliocentric theory,
the theory of evolution,
relativity theory, and
germ theory still bear the name "theory" even though, in practice, they are considered
factual. Philosopher
Barry Stroud adds that, although the best definition for "
knowledge" is contested, being
skeptical and entertaining the
possibility
that one is incorrect is compatible with being correct. Ironically
then, the scientist adhering to proper scientific approaches will doubt
themselves even once they possess the
truth. The
fallibilist C. S. Peirce argued that inquiry is the struggle to resolve actual doubt and that merely quarrelsome, verbal, or
hyperbolic doubt
is fruitless—but also that the inquirer should try to attain genuine
doubt rather than resting uncritically on common sense. He held that the
successful sciences trust, not to any single chain of inference (no
stronger than its weakest link), but to the cable of multiple and
various arguments intimately connected.
Stanovich also asserts that science avoids searching for a "magic bullet"; it avoids the
single-cause fallacy. This means a scientist would not ask merely "What is
the cause of...", but rather "What
are the most significant
causes of...". This is especially the case in the more macroscopic fields of science (e.g.
psychology,
cosmology).
Of course, research often analyzes few factors at once, but these are
always added to the long list of factors that are most important to
consider. For example: knowing the details of only a person's genetics,
or their history and upbringing, or the current situation may not
explain a behaviour, but a deep understanding of all these variables
combined can be very predictive.
Pseudoscience, fringe science, and junk science
An area of study or speculation that masquerades as science in an
attempt to claim a legitimacy that it would not otherwise be able to
achieve is sometimes referred to as
pseudoscience,
fringe science, or "alternative science". Another term,
junk science,
is often used to describe scientific hypotheses or conclusions which,
while perhaps legitimate in themselves, are believed to be used to
support a position that is seen as not legitimately justified by the
totality of evidence. Physicist
Richard Feynman coined the term "
cargo cult science"
in reference to pursuits that have the formal trappings of science but
lack "a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of
utter honesty" that allows their results to be rigorously evaluated.
Various types of commercial advertising, ranging from hype to fraud, may
fall into these categories.
There also can be an element of political or ideological bias on all
sides of such debates. Sometimes, research may be characterized as "bad
science", research that is well-intentioned but is seen as incorrect,
obsolete, incomplete, or over-simplified expositions of scientific
ideas. The term "
scientific misconduct"
refers to situations such as where researchers have intentionally
misrepresented their published data or have purposely given credit for a
discovery to the wrong person.
Scientific practice
"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end
in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end
in certainties." —
Francis Bacon (1605)
The Advancement of Learning, Book 1, v, 8
A skeptical point of view, demanding a method of proof, was the practical position taken as early as 1000 years ago, with
Alhazen,
Doubts Concerning Ptolemy, through Bacon (1605), and
C. S. Peirce (1839–1914), who note that a
community will then spring up to address these points of uncertainty. The methods of
inquiry into a problem have been known for thousands of years, and extend beyond theory to practice. The use of
measurements, for example, is a practical approach to settle disputes in the community.
John Ziman points out that
intersubjective pattern recognition
is fundamental to the creation of all scientific knowledge. Ziman shows
how scientists can identify patterns to each other across centuries:
Needham 1954 (illustration facing page 164) shows how today's trained Western botanist can identify
Artemisia alba
from images taken from a 16th-century Chinese pharmacopeia, and Ziman
refers to this ability as 'perceptual consensibility'. Ziman then makes
consensibility, leading to consensus, the touchstone of reliable
knowledge.
The scientific method
The
scientific method seeks to explain the events of
nature in a
reproducible way. An explanatory
thought experiment or
hypothesis is put forward, as explanation, using principles such as
parsimony (also known as "
Occam's Razor") and are generally expected to seek
consilience—fitting well with other accepted facts related to the phenomena. This new explanation is used to make
falsifiable
predictions that are testable by experiment or observation. The
predictions are to be posted before a confirming experiment or
observation is sought, as proof that no tampering has occurred. Disproof
of a prediction is evidence of progress. This is done partly through
observation of natural phenomena, but also through experimentation, that
tries to simulate natural events under controlled conditions, as
appropriate to the discipline (in the observational sciences, such as
astronomy or geology, a predicted observation might take the place of a
controlled experiment). Experimentation is especially important in
science to help establish
causal relationships (to avoid the
correlation fallacy).
When a hypothesis proves unsatisfactory, it is either modified or
discarded. If the hypothesis survived testing, it may become adopted
into the framework of a
scientific theory.
This is a logically reasoned, self-consistent model or framework for
describing the behavior of certain natural phenomena. A theory typically
describes the behavior of much broader sets of phenomena than a
hypothesis; commonly, a large number of hypotheses can be logically
bound together by a single theory. Thus a theory is a hypothesis
explaining various other hypotheses. In that vein, theories are
formulated according to most of the same scientific principles as
hypotheses. In addition to testing hypotheses, scientists may also
generate a
model
based on observed phenomena. This is an attempt to describe or depict
the phenomenon in terms of a logical, physical or mathematical
representation and to generate new hypotheses that can be tested.
While performing experiments to test hypotheses, scientists may have a
preference for one outcome over another, and so it is important to
ensure that science as a whole can eliminate this bias. This can be
achieved by careful
experimental design, transparency, and a thorough
peer review
process of the experimental results as well as any conclusions. After
the results of an experiment are announced or published, it is normal
practice for independent researchers to double-check how the research
was performed, and to follow up by performing similar experiments to
determine how dependable the results might be. Taken in its entirety,
the scientific method allows for highly creative problem solving while
minimizing any effects of subjective bias on the part of its users
(namely the
confirmation bias).
Mathematics and formal sciences
Main article:
Mathematics
is essential to the sciences. One important function of mathematics in
science is the role it plays in the expression of scientific models.
Observing and collecting
measurements, as well as hypothesizing and predicting, often require extensive use of mathematics.
Arithmetic,
algebra,
geometry,
trigonometry and
calculus, for example, are all essential to
physics. Virtually every branch of mathematics has applications in science, including "pure" areas such as
number theory and
topology.
Statistical methods,
which are mathematical techniques for summarizing and analyzing data,
allow scientists to assess the level of reliability and the range of
variation in experimental results. Statistical analysis plays a
fundamental role in many areas of both the natural sciences and social
sciences.
Computational science
applies computing power to simulate real-world situations, enabling a
better understanding of scientific problems than formal mathematics
alone can achieve. According to the
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, computation is now as important as theory and experiment in advancing scientific knowledge.
Whether mathematics itself is properly classified as science has been
a matter of some debate. Some thinkers see mathematicians as
scientists, regarding physical experiments as inessential or
mathematical proofs as equivalent to experiments. Others do not see
mathematics as a science, since it does not require an experimental test
of its theories and hypotheses. Mathematical
theorems and
formulas are obtained by
logical derivations which presume
axiomatic systems, rather than the combination of
empirical observation and logical reasoning that has come to be known as the
scientific method. In general, mathematics is classified as
formal science, while natural and social sciences are classified as
empirical sciences.
Basic and applied research
Although some scientific research is
applied research into specific problems, a great deal of our understanding comes from the curiosity-driven undertaking of
basic research.
This leads to options for technological advance that were not planned
or sometimes even imaginable. This point was made by Michael Faraday
when, allegedly in response to the question "what is the
use of
basic research?" he responded "Sir, what is the use of a new-born
child?". For example, research into the effects of red light on the
human eye's
rod cells did not seem to have any practical purpose; eventually, the discovery that our
night vision is not troubled by red light would lead
search and rescue
teams (among others) to adopt red light in the cockpits of jets and
helicopters. In a nutshell: Basic research is the search for knowledge.
Applied research is the search for solutions to practical problems using
this knowledge. Finally, even basic research can take unexpected turns,
and there is some sense in which the scientific method is built to
harness luck.
Research in practice
Due to the increasing complexity of information and specialization of
scientists, most of the cutting-edge research today is done by well
funded groups of scientists, rather than individuals. D.K. Simonton
notes that due to the breadth of very precise and far reaching tools
already used by researchers today and the amount of research generated
so far, creation of new disciplines or revolutions within a discipline
may no longer be possible as it is unlikely that some phenomenon that
merits its own discipline has been overlooked. Hybridizing of
disciplines and finessing knowledge is, in his view, the future of
science.
Practical impacts of scientific research
Discoveries in fundamental science can be world-changing. For example:
-
| Research |
Impact |
The strange orbit of Mercury (1859) and other research
leading to special (1905) and general relativity (1916) |
Satellite-based technology such as GPS (1973), satnav and satellite communications
|
|
Radioactivity (1896) and antimatter (1932) |
Cancer treatment (1896), nuclear reactors (1942) and weapons (1945), PET scans (1961), and medical research (via isotopic labeling) |
|
Germ theory (1700) |
Vaccination, leading to the elimination of most infectious diseases from developed countries and the worldwide eradication of smallpox; hygiene, leading to decreased transmission of infectious diseases; antibodies, leading to techniques for disease diagnosis and targeted anticancer therapies. |
|
Static electricity and magnetism (1600) |
All modern electronics, including electric lighting, television, electric heating, magnetic tape, loudspeaker, plus the compass and lightning rod. |
|
Crystallography and quantum mechanics (1900) |
Semiconductor devices (1906), hence modern computing and telecommunications including the integration with wireless devices: the mobile phone
|
|
Diffraction (1665) |
Optics, hence fiber optic cable (1840s), modern intercontinental communications, and cable TV and internet
|
|
Photovoltaic effect (1839) |
Solar cells (1883), hence solar power, solar powered watches, calculators and other devices. |
|
Radio waves (1887) |
Radio had become used in innumerable ways beyond its better-known areas of telephony, and broadcast television (1927) and radio (1906) entertainment. Other uses included - emergency services, radar (navigation and weather prediction), sonar, medicine, astronomy, wireless communications, and networking. Radio waves also led researchers to adjacent frequencies such as microwaves, used worldwide for heating and cooking food. |
The scientific community is the group of all interacting scientists.
It includes many sub-communities working on particular scientific
fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and
cross-institutional activities are also significant.
Branches and fields
Scientific fields are commonly divided into two major groups:
natural sciences, which study natural phenomena (including
biological life), and
social sciences, which study
human behavior and
societies. These groupings are
empirical sciences, which means the knowledge must be based on observable
phenomena
and capable of being tested for its validity by other researchers
working under the same conditions. There are also related disciplines
that are grouped into interdisciplinary and applied sciences, such as
engineering and
medicine.
Within these categories are specialized scientific fields that can
include parts of other scientific disciplines but often possess their
own
nomenclature and expertise.
Mathematics, which is classified as a
formal science,
has both similarities and differences with the empirical sciences (the
natural and social sciences). It is similar to empirical sciences in
that it involves an objective, careful and systematic study of an area
of knowledge; it is different because of its method of verifying its
knowledge, using
a priori rather than empirical methods. The formal sciences, which also include
statistics and
logic,
are vital to the empirical sciences. Major advances in formal science
have often led to major advances in the empirical sciences. The formal
sciences are essential in the formation of
hypotheses,
theories, and
laws, both in discovering and describing how things work (natural sciences) and how people think and act (social sciences).
Institutions
Learned societies for the communication and promotion of scientific thought and experimentation have existed since the
Renaissance period. The oldest surviving institution is the Italian
Accademia dei Lincei which was established in 1603. The respective National
Academies of Science are distinguished institutions that exist in a number of countries, beginning with the British
Royal Society in 1660 and the French
Académie des Sciences in 1666.
International scientific organizations, such as the
International Council for Science,
have since been formed to promote cooperation between the scientific
communities of different nations. Many governments have dedicated
agencies to support scientific research. Prominent scientific
organizations include, the
National Science Foundation in the
U.S., the
National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina, the
academies of science of many nations,
CSIRO in Australia,
Centre national de la recherche scientifique in France,
Max Planck Society and
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Germany, and in Spain,
CSIC.
Literature
An enormous range of
scientific literature is published.
Scientific journals
communicate and document the results of research carried out in
universities and various other research institutions, serving as an
archival record of science. The first scientific journals,
Journal des Sçavans followed by the
Philosophical Transactions,
began publication in 1665. Since that time the total number of active
periodicals has steadily increased. As of 1981, one estimate for the
number of scientific and technical journals in publication was 11,500.
The
United States National Library of Medicine
currently indexes 5,516 journals that contain articles on topics
related to the life sciences. Although the journals are in 39 languages,
91 percent of the indexed articles are published in English.
Most scientific journals cover a single scientific field and publish
the research within that field; the research is normally expressed in
the form of a
scientific paper.
Science has become so pervasive in modern societies that it is
generally considered necessary to communicate the achievements, news,
and ambitions of scientists to a wider populace.
Science magazines such as
New Scientist,
Science & Vie, and
Scientific American
cater to the needs of a much wider readership and provide a
non-technical summary of popular areas of research, including notable
discoveries and advances in certain fields of research.
Science books engage the interest of many more people. Tangentially, the
science fiction genre, primarily fantastic in nature, engages the public imagination and transmits the ideas, if not the methods, of science.
Recent efforts to intensify or develop links between science and non-scientific disciplines such as
Literature or, more specifically,
Poetry, include the
Creative Writing Science resource developed through the
Royal Literary Fund.
Science and society
Women in science
Vera Rubin,
the first astronomer to infer galactic clumping from astronomical data
in 1953, was not allowed to use the telescope at Palomar until 1965,
with the given reason that the facility did not have a women's
restroom.
Science is largely a male-dominated field, with notable exceptions. A
large majority of male scientists are the ones who have made the
discoveries, written the books and thus have written the rules of what
to study and how to study it. There is evidence suggesting that this is a
product of stereotypes (e.g. science as "manly") as well as
self-fulfilling prophecies.
Experiments have shown that parents challenge and explain more to boys
than girls, asking them to reflect more deeply and logically. Physicist
Evelyn Fox Keller argues that science has
masculine
stereotypes causing ego and competitiveness to obstruct progress, and
that these tendencies prevent collaboration and sharing of information.
Women have faced a lot of discrimination getting not only credit for
their scientific discoveries but also getting opportunities. Both in
research and professorship the quantity of females are very limited in
comparison to their male counterparts. The lack of females in science
can be directly associated with the social atmosphere which has always
treated science as a more masculine area of study. Beginning with boys
being pushed more towards academia and girls being confined to the
domestic sphere, females have faced both discrimination and difficulty
entering into science. Those who are a part of the scientific community
find it difficult to break the "glass ceiling" which thus limits how far
they can advance within the field. The barrier between work and home
has also been an obstacle that women have had to overcome to succeed in
the sciences. The achievements of women in science are attributed to
their defiance of traditional status of being a laborer within the
domestic sphere.
Feminist authors and leaders who hail from various educational backgrounds such as
Londa Schiebinger,
Anne Fausto-Sterling,
Bonnie Spanier, and
Evelyn Fox Keller
have published many works interpreting and critiquing science from a
feminist perspective. Some criticisms include the gendered metaphors in
science, the lack of representation of females in the sciences, how
science is used to back up the ideals of patriarchy, and sex/gender
dichotomies.
Feminist Science Studies as a sub-genre of
Women's Studies or
Gender Studies
are available as areas of study in many universities as a method of
activism to promote and encourage awareness of social issues as well as
promoting women and intersex individuals to contribute more to the
sciences.
Although it has been difficult for women to break into the field of
science as credible contributors, many new discoveries have been a
result of work by female scientists. Some of the most famous females in
the field include
Marie Curie, who made discoveries relating to radioactivity,
Rosalind Franklin, who worked with x-ray diffraction,
Caroline Herschel, who was the first woman to be paid for her scientific work and
Jane Goodall,
who is currently the world's foremost primatologist. These women helped
establish a place for women in a heavily male dominated field. Most
female scientists have only gained fame and authority in the 20th
century although there have been advancements in the natural sciences
made by women since the early 15th century.
Christine de Pizan
wrote the first encyclopedia in which she gave credit to these
15th-century women for the scientific discoveries of bread making, wool
dyeing, grain cultivation and many other day to day inventions.
Science policy
President Clinton meets the 1998 U.S.
Nobel Prize winners in the White House.
Science policy is an area of
public policy concerned with the policies that affect the conduct of the scientific enterprise, including
research funding,
often in pursuance of other national policy goals such as technological
innovation to promote commercial product development, weapons
development, health care and environmental monitoring. Science policy
also refers to the act of applying scientific knowledge and consensus to
the development of public policies. Science policy thus deals with the
entire domain of issues that involve the natural sciences. In accordance
with
public policy
being concerned about the well-being of its citizens, science policy's
goal is to consider how science and technology can best serve the
public.
State policy has influenced the funding of
public works and science for thousands of years, dating at least from the time of the
Mohists, who inspired the study of logic during the period of the
Hundred Schools of Thought, and the study of defensive fortifications during the
Warring States period in China. In
Great Britain, governmental approval of
the Royal Society in the 17th century recognized a
scientific community
which exists to this day. The professionalization of science, begun in
the 19th century, was partly enabled by the creation of scientific
organizations such as the
National Academy of Sciences, the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and State funding of universities of their respective nations. Public policy can directly affect the funding of
capital equipment, intellectual infrastructure for industrial research, by providing tax incentives to those organizations that fund research.
Vannevar Bush, director of the office of scientific research and development for the United States government, the forerunner of the
National Science Foundation, wrote in July 1945 that "Science is a proper concern of government"
Science and technology
research is often funded through a competitive process, in which
potential research projects are evaluated and only the most promising
receive funding. Such processes, which are run by government,
corporations or foundations, allocate scarce funds. Total research
funding in most
developed countries is between 1.5% and 3% of
GDP. In the
OECD, around two-thirds of
research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20% and 10% respectively by
universities and government. The government funding proportion in certain industries is higher, and it dominates research in
social science and
humanities. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g.
biotechnology) government provides the bulk of the funds for
basic scientific research.
In commercial research and development, all but the most
research-oriented corporations focus more heavily on near-term
commercialisation possibilities rather than "
blue-sky" ideas or technologies (such as
nuclear fusion).
Media perspectives
The
mass media
face a number of pressures that can prevent them from accurately
depicting competing scientific claims in terms of their credibility
within the scientific community as a whole. Determining how much weight
to give different sides in a
scientific debate may require considerable expertise regarding the matter. Few journalists have real scientific knowledge, and even
beat reporters
who know a great deal about certain scientific issues may be ignorant
about other scientific issues that they are suddenly asked to cover.
Political usage
Many issues damage the relationship of science to the media and the use of science and scientific arguments by
politicians. As a very broad generalisation, many politicians seek certainties and
facts whilst scientists typically offer probabilities and caveats. However, politicians' ability to be heard in the
mass media frequently distorts the scientific understanding by the public. Examples in
Britain include the controversy over the
MMR inoculation, and the 1988 forced resignation of a Government Minister,
Edwina Currie for revealing the high probability that
battery farmed eggs were contaminated with
Salmonella.
John Horgan,
Chris Mooney,
and researchers from the US and Canada have described Scientific
Certainty Argumentation Methods (SCAMs), where an organization or think
tank makes it their only goal to cast doubt on supported science because
it conflicts with political agendas. Hank Campbell and microbiologist
Alex Berezow have described "feel-good fallacies" used in politics,
where politicians frame their positions in a way that makes people feel
good about supporting certain policies even when scientific evidence
shows there is no need to worry or there is no need for dramatic change
on current programs.
