SCIENCE

Science (from Latin: scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise of gathering

knowledge about nature and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and
theories.[1] As knowledge has increased, some methods have proved more reliable than others,
and today the scientific method is the standard for science. It includes the use of careful
observation, experimentation, measurement, mathematics, and replication — to be considered a
science, a body of knowledge must stand up to repeated testing by independent observers. The
use of the scientific method to make new discoveries is called scientific research, and the people
who carry out this research are called scientists.[2][3] This article focuses on science in the more
restricted sense, what is sometimes called experimental science. Applied science, or engineering,
is the practical application of scientific knowledge

Basic classifications
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.[3] There are also related disciplines that are grouped into
interdisciplinary and applied sciences, such as engineering and health science. Within these
categories are specialized scientific fields that can include elements of other scientific disciplines
but often possess their own terminology and body of expertise.[4]

Mathematics, which is classified as a formal science, has both similarities and differences with
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.[3] Formal science, which
also includes statistics and logic, is 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,[3] both in discovering and describing
how things work (natural sciences) and how people think and act (social sciences).

History and etymology

While empirical investigations of the natural world have been described since antiquity (for
example, by Aristotle, Theophrastus and Pliny the Elder), and scientific methods have been
employed since the Middle Ages (for example, by Alhazen, Abu Rayhan Biruni and Roger
Bacon), the dawn of modern science is generally traced back to the early modern period during
what is known as the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries.[5]
The word "science" comes through the Old French, and is derived in turn from the Latin scientia,
"knowledge", the nominal form of the verb scire, "to know". The Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
root that yields scire is *skei-, meaning to "cut, separate, or discern".[6] Similarly, the Greek word
for science is 'επιστήμη', deriving from the verb 'επίσταμαι', 'to know'. From the Middle Ages to
the Enlightenment, science or scientia meant any systematic recorded knowledge.[7] Science
therefore had the same sort of very broad meaning that philosophy had at that time. In other
languages, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, the word corresponding to science
also carries this meaning.

Prior to the 1700s, the preferred term for the study of nature was natural philosophy, while
English speakers most typically referred to other philosophical disciplines (such as logic,
metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics) as moral philosophy. Today, "moral
philosophy" is more-or-less synonymous with "ethics". Far into the 1700s, science and natural
philosophy were not quite synonymous, but only became so later with the direct use of what
would become known formally as the scientific method. By contrast, the word "science" in
English was still used in the 17th century (1600s) to refer to the Aristotelian concept of
knowledge which was secure enough to be used as a sure prescription for exactly how to do
something. In this differing sense of the two words, the philosopher John Locke wrote
disparagingly in 1690 that "natural philosophy [the study of nature] is not capable of being made
a science".[8]

Locke was to be proven wrong, however. By the early 1800s, natural philosophy had begun to
separate from philosophy, though it often retained a very broad meaning. In many cases, science
continued to stand for reliable knowledge about any topic, in the same way it is still used in the
broad sense (see the introduction to this article) in modern terms such as library science, political
science, and computer science. In the more narrow sense of science, as natural philosophy
became linked to an expanding set of well-defined laws (beginning with Galileo's laws, Kepler's
laws, and Newton's laws for motion), it became more popular to refer to natural philosophy as
natural science. Over the course of the nineteenth century, moreover, there was an increased
tendency to associate science with study of the natural world (that is, the non-human world).
This move sometimes left the study of human thought and society (what would come to be called
social science) in a linguistic limbo by the end of the century and into the next.[9]

Through the 1800s, many English speakers were increasingly differentiating science (i.e., the
natural sciences) from all other forms of knowledge in a variety of ways. The now-familiar
expression “scientific method,” which refers to the prescriptive part of how to make discoveries
in natural philosophy, was almost unused until then, but became widespread after the 1870s,
though there was rarely total agreement about just what it entailed.[9] The word "scientist," meant
to refer to a systematically working natural philosopher, (as opposed to an intuitive or
empirically minded one) was coined in 1833 by William Whewell.[10] Discussion of scientists as
a special group of people who did science, even if their attributes were up for debate, grew in the
last half of the 19th century.[9] Whatever people actually meant by these terms at first, they
ultimately depicted science, in the narrow sense of the habitual use of the scientific method and
the knowledge derived from it, as something deeply distinguished from all other realms of
human endeavor.
By the twentieth century (1900s), the modern notion of science as a special kind of knowledge
about the world, practiced by a distinct group and pursued through a unique method, was
essentially in place. It was used to give legitimacy to a variety of fields through such titles as
"scientific" medicine, engineering, advertising, or motherhood.[9] Over the 1900s, links between
science and technology also grew increasingly strong.

Richard Feynman described science in the following way for his students: "The principle of
science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment.
Experiment is the sole judge of scientific 'truth'. But what is the source of knowledge? Where do
the laws that are to be tested come from? Experiment, itself, helps to produce these laws, in the
sense that it gives us hints. But also needed is imagination to create from these hints the great
generalizations — to guess at the wonderful, simple, but very strange patterns beneath them all,
and then to experiment to check again whether we have made the right guess." Feynman also
observed, "...there is an expanding frontier of ignorance...things must be learned only to be
unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected."[11]

SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Experimentation and hypothesizing
A scientific method seeks to explain the events of nature in a reproducible way, and to use these
findings to make useful predictions. This is done partly through observation of natural
phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate natural events under controlled
conditions. Taken in its entirety, the scientific method allows for great creativity while providing
an ultimately objective process to find solutions to problems in various domains.[12]

Based on observations of a phenomenon, a scientist may generate a model. This is an attempt to

describe or depict the phenomenon in terms of a logical physical or mathematical representation.
As empirical evidence is gathered, a scientist can suggest a hypothesis to explain the
phenomenon. This description can be used to make predictions that are testable by experiment or
observation using scientific method. When a hypothesis proves unsatisfactory, it is either
modified or discarded. Operationalization plays an important role in coordinating research
in/across different fields.

Although some scientific research is applied, much of our understanding and technology comes
from the curiosity-driven undertaking of basic research. For example, research into the effects of
red light on the human eye did not seem to have any practical purpose; once it was discovered
that rod cells (which provides human night vision) are not bleached by red light, militaries
started using red light in the cockpits of jet fighters. [13]

The social aspects

While performing experiments, 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.[14][15] This can be
achieved by careful experimental design, transparency, and a thorough peer review process of
the experimental results as well as any conclusions.[16][17] 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.[18]

Once a hypothesis has 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. These broader theories may be formulated using
principles such as parsimony (traditionally known as "Occam's Razor"). They are then repeatedly
tested by analyzing how the collected evidence (facts) compares to the theory.

Theories very rarely result in vast changes in our understanding. Indeed 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
and even across different domains of science, more like a climb than a leap.[19] It should be noted
that all theories vary in both 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, and germ theory still bear the name "theory" even though, in practice, they are
considered factual.[20]

Certainty and science

Unlike a mathematical proof, 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. Instead,
science is proud to make predictions with great probability, bearing in mind that the most likely
event is not always what actually happens. During the Yom Kippur War, cognitive psychologist
Daniel Kahneman was asked to explain why one squad of aircraft had returned safely, yet a
second squad on the exact same operation had lost all of its planes. Rather than conduct a study,
Kanhneman simply reiterated the importance of expecting some coincidences in life, explaining
that absurdly rare things, by definition, occasionally happen. [21] In this sense, science's
probabilities can run counter to our intuitions, which rely heavily on heuristics including mental
availability.

Science avoids the single cause fallacy and never searches for the one "magic bullet" cause of an
effect. This is especially true of more macroscopic sciences (such as psychology) where many
factors are at play. Instead science undertakes to establish causational relationships between only
specific variables at a time. For example: while any details of a person's genetics, history and
upbringing, or current situation may not explain a behaviour, all of this information combined
can be very predictive.at last science play a crucial role in every fieldof our life.
CONCLUSION
By studying science you could have a fascinating and crucial role to play by:
* Designing realistic alternative energy sources
* Developing new modes of communication
* Helping people to live more sustainably
* Producing safe, environmentally friendly and healthy products, from aeroplanes to chocolate bars
* Working with farmers to improve crop production
* Protecting the environment and combating the effects of climate change by reducing carbon dioxide
emissions and limiting global warming
* Finding alternative methods for supplying clean water
* Discovering new medicines and vaccines for treating killer diseases, techniques for surgery or gene
therapy
* And… there is still space to explore!

MUHAMMAD MOIZ.HUSSAIN

CV2C 2010 172