Science refers to either:
Areas of science may be classified in two major dimensions:
Less formally, the word science often covers any systematic field of study (like the humanities), or the knowledge gained from it.
What is science?
There are different theories of what "science" is.
According to empiricism, "scientific" theories are objective, empirically testable, and "predictive" — they predict empirical results that can be checked and possibly contradicted.
In contrast, scientific realism defines science in terms of ontology: science attempts to identify what "things" in the world, their causal powers, the mechanisms through which they exercise those powers, and the sources of those powers in terms of the thing's structure or internal nature.
Even in the empiricist tradition, we must be careful to understand that "prediction" refers to the outcome of an experiment or study, rather than to literally predicting the future. For example, to say, "a paleontologist may make predictions about finding a certain type of dinosaur" is consistent with the empiricist's use of prediction. On the other hand, sciences like geology or meteorology need not be able to make accurate predictions about earthquakes or the weather to qualify as sciences. Empiricist philosopher, Karl Popper also argued that certain verification is impossible and that scientific hypotheses can only be falsified (falsification).
Positivism, a form of empiricism, advocates using science, as defined by empiricism, to govern human affairs. Because of their close affiliation, the terms "positivism" and "empiricism" are often used interchangeably. Both have been subjected to devastating criticisms:
- W. V. Quine demonstrated the impossibility of a theory-independent observation language, so the very notion of testing theories with facts is problematic.
- Observations are always theory-laden. Thomas Kuhn demonstrated that science always involves "paradigms," sets of (often unstated) assumptions, rules, practices, etc. and that transitions from one paradigm to another generally does not involve verification or falsification of scientific theories. Moreover, he demonstrated that science has not proceeded historically as the steady accumulation of facts, as the empiricist model implies.
- Philosopher Roy Bhaskar [1] (http://www.indopedia.org/Roy_Bhaskar.html) has shown that the practice of scientific experiments presumes a "layered" ontology in which empirical reality is only the most evident layer, but there must also be actual and real layers. According to Bhaskar, science is knowledge of the real, and empiricism makes a crucial error of reasoning — the epistemic fallacy. This is the mistake of confusing the limits of human knowledge with the limits of reality itself.
For more information, see Theories and sociology of the history of science.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
science - a method of learning about the physical universe by applying the principles of the scientific method, which includes making empirical observations, proposing hypotheses to explain those observations, and testing those hypotheses in valid and reliable ways; also refers to the organized body of knowledge that results from scientific study
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration