If you were asked to define Science, what would you say? It may sound a silly question. After all, Science is Science. It is, to many, merely a combination of Biology, Physics and Chemistry, but Science is so much more than just three individual disciplines. Science is a complex subject, spanning many areas of knowledge, and Science is often completely misunderstood.
Science envelopes many different areas of study and there are many different fields of science, such as: Zoology and Biological Science; Mechanical and Quantum Physics; Chemistry, Virology and Medical Science; Mathematics and Mathematical Science; Social Sciences; and Engineering. Science is so broad that the best way to define the discipline is to define the process, a process called the Scientific Method.
The Scientific Method is a process of describing how an event takes place, typically making predictions about future events based on the data and evidence accumulated from the observations. By design, this method usually supplies the best possible explanation based on the available knowledge, but that is all.
Science does not, and has never claimed to explain why an event takes place; that is not sciences domain. That is the domain of philosophy. In science, the Theory of Abiogenesis, for example, doesn’t justify why life is here, just how life originated. The theory describes how life – i.e. an organism capable of growth and/or reproduction or replication – may have originated from natural, organic matter. Similarly, the Theory of Evolution also does not claim to know why humans are here, but simply describes how humans, and other animals, may have developed. Evolution describes nothing more than a process of change in allelic frequency over time due to natural selection and genetic drift.
Science never claims to know why anything has ever happened, or why anything ever will because the question “why?” is not necessarily observable. If we investigate a murder, we can see how the murder has taken place using empirical evidence. This could include a gun found at the scene with gunpowder around the nozzle and a matching bullet lodged in the victim’s skull, but we cannot necessarily assert why, because the evidence is not empirical. There could be many reasons why the murder took place: for money, for a woman or for personal convictions. This is why philosophy has so many views, and none are necessarily right or wrong, just perhaps more plausible.
This is not to say that philosophy and science are completely separate entities. Both philosophy and science cross intrinsically, and many philosophical principles are used to argue cases in science and vice-versa. Stolen money at the scene of murder may indicate a reason why the murder took place by using empirical evidence, but this is still not a descriptive claim of how the murder took place. The money may have been stolen as a cover-up to the deed, or by another person unrelated to the original incident.
Science was once considered a branch of philosophy: a Natural Philosophy. However, it is the outcome of these events – and the process of developing our understanding – that separates the two modern disciplines. Science may incorporate areas of philosophy (most notably logic) and philosophical concepts such as morals may affect science and the route taken in scientific discovery, but the conclusions are still scientific.
Indeed, in rare aspects, the line separating philosophy and science can become very blurred, but whilst a philosopher may use scientific concepts to back up a philosophical argument, but the argument is still philosophical.
The Scientific Method, in its simplest form, works by the derivations of laws and theories based on a hypothesis proposed from observations of an event. Usually, an event is witnessed and evidence of certain events is gathered, such as a lead ball falling to the ground when dropped. The evidence that the ball falls is visual, as well as mathematical, with a measurement of displacement from its original position and a mark on the ground from where the ball landed. A hypothesis is then derived from this, such as Newton’s theories of gravitational attraction.
Once a hypothesis is derived from the observations, the hypothesis needs to be critically analysed and tested. If a scientist who proposed the hypothesis wants to prove the hypothesis, be may use a biased test that he knows will prove the hypothesis correct. So, to remove bias, Scientists usually attempt to disprove the hypothesis. If the hypothesis can be proved wrong, the hypothesis is immediately discarded or modified. If the hypothesis cannot be proven wrong it is proposed as a theory.
If the hypothesis survives numerous tests, then the results are published. This is perhaps the most important part of the Scientific Method, because it allows other Scientists to review the tests and repeat the tests to make sure the results are not fabricated. If certain results are found to not fit in with the predictions made by the theory, then the theory must be modified to account for these results. If the theory is unable to account for these results, the theory is discarded, and a new hypothesis must be derived. This process is called the "peer review" and is a failsafe against scientists proposing untested or fabricated theories, often for personal gain.
This demonstrates the strength of a scientific theory, and highlights how the term “theory” is often misinterpreted as a hypothesis. A person who asserts that a scientific theory is “Just a theory, and therefore unproven” demonstrates their ignorance toward the Scientific Method. A theory, in Science, must – by default – be backed by shear amounts of evidence and has usually been tested countless times under huge inscrutability. In fact, the NAS (Nation Academy of Sciences) defines a theory as “A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.”
This segment of an article from Scientific America demonstrates in more detail the differences in a hypothesis, theory and law.
"Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.
"In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.
"All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain."
Source - www.scientificamerican.com
We can see from here that empirical evidence is important to the Scientific Method. This can relate to the earlier analogy of the murder scene, where the police may accumulate factual evidence on the scene as to how the murder took place, but until they find the suspect of the murder and interrogate him, they may not know for sure why the murder took place.
Documentation, as earlier mentioned, is perhaps the most important aspect to science. It allows all research to be referenced throughout the world, and results to be repeatedly tested and verified under different conditions. It allows us to refer to basic principles and derive new laws or theories based on those principles.
Under no circumstances should any theory be taken on merits of authority or superficial plausibility. Many people may discredit theories by the likes of Sir Charles Darwin because they felt he was a bad role model. People claim, quite unrightfully, that Darwin upheld slavery and therefore his Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection could not be trusted as it was “evil”. Despite the fact that Darwin was fervently in support of the abolition of the slave trade and was almost cast off his infamous Beagle voyage after a dispute with the ships captain over similar matters, Darwin’s personal convictions do not play a part in the validity of his widely accepted theory. A scientific theory must always be taken on its own merits, and never on those who uphold or propose the theory.
Aristotle was, even in his lifetime, an infamous philosopher and scientist. So great was respect for Aristotle that almost all of his scientific claims remained unchallenged in his lifetime, from the insightful to the absurd. Among many other, more bizarre claims, Aristotle originally proposed – and it was accepted as a fact – that heavier objects would fall faster because they weighed more. It would seem logical: if you dropped a small lead ball, it will leave a small dent in the floor. If you dropped a huge lead boulder, it would leave a crater. Many people accepted this as a fact and it seemed so obvious that no one even bothered to test this assumption. It was not until the 17th century that Galileo demonstrated that this was not the case by dropping 2 balls of the same material, but different mass, off the side of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that their time of decent was the same. This meant that the acceleration on an object on the earth’s surface is the same.
This was later verified through Sir Isaac Newton’s theories of gravity, where Newton proposed that the force acting on an object is equal to the objects mass multiplied by the objects acceleration: F=ma (Force = Mass x Acceleration). This showed us that, whilst the 2 objects were moving at the same acceleration, the force exerted by the objects could be different depending on the objects mass, hence showing why the larger lead ball of greater mass left a much larger crater. It fell at the same speed but with more force, and therefore more energy.
If Galileo had not demonstrated and documented that all objects, regardless of size or mass, do not fall at the same speed, then Sir Isaac Newton would not have been able to build on Galileo’s work and further derive his own theories of gravitational attraction, and forces would not be understood. In fact, almost all aspects of modern day life would be completely different.
It is by building off the works of great thinkers of the past, and developing and deriving from their theories that science can progress, for Sir Isaac Newton famously quoted:
“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” - Sir Isaac Newton
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