Usually scientific work involves many individuals doing many different kinds of work and goes on to some degree in all nations of the world. Women and men of varied backgrounds, with different interests, talents, motivations engage in science. Science goes on in many different settings. Scientists are employed by universities, hospitals, business and industry, government, independent research organizations, and scientific associations. Their places of work include classrooms, offices, laboratories, and natural field settings from space to the bottom of the sea. They may work alone, in small groups, or as members of large research teams, but all communicate extensively with each other.

Abilities Required to Work

Doing Science requires different abilities. The work of science depends on basic human qualities such as reasoning, insight, energy, skill and creativity as well as on the scientific abilities of the mind, such as intellectual honesty, tolerance of ambiguity, openness to ideas, skepticism 

The Social Aspects

Because of the social nature of science, the dissemination of scientific information is crucial to its progress. Some scientists present their findings and theories in papers that are delivered at meetings or published in scientific journals. Those papers enable scientists to inform others about their work, to expose their ideas to criticism by other scientists, and, of course, to stay abreast of scientific developments around the world.

Scientists' nationality, sex, ethnic origin, age, political convictions, and so on may incline them to look for or emphasize one or another kind of evidence or interpretation. For example, for many years the study of primates—by male scientists—focused on the competitive social behavior of males. Not until female scientists entered the field was the importance of female primates' community-building behavior recognized. 

In their work, scientists go to great lengths to avoid bias—their own as well as that of others. But in matters of public interest, scientists, like other people, can be expected to be biased where their own personal, corporate, institutional, or community interests are at stake 

The direction of scientific research is affected by prevailing opinion on what questions are most interesting or what methods of investigation are most likely to be fruitful. Elaborate processes (involving scientists themselves) have been developed to decide which research proposals receive funding. These committees of scientists regularly review progress in various disciplines to recommend general priorities for funding.  Along with these these informal influences, the morals of our nation influence the science, with bans on public funding - as we've seen with stem cells -or just slamming the door shut on certain projects, like cloning a human. 

How is 'Scientific' Knowledge Created?

All scientific ideas are tentative and subject to change. Scientists have changed their ideas about nature when they encounter experimental evidence that does not match their existing explanations.  

For some major ideas there is a lot of observation and experimental confirmation. These ideas may not change a lot. In areas where active research is being pursued, and in which there is still no great deal of observations, evidence and understanding, it is normal for scientists to differ with one another about the interpretation of theory being considered 

Different scientists publish conflicting experimental results and draw different conclusions from the same data. Ideally, scientists acknowledge such conflict and work towards finding evidence that will resolve their disagreement.  New ideas that do not mesh well with mainstream ideas may encounter vigorous criticism, and scientists investigating such ideas may have difficulty obtaining support for their research. Even the most prestigious scientists have occasionally refused to accept new theories despite there being enough accumulated evidence to convince others. 

As scientific knowledge has evolved major disagreements have eventually been resolved through such interactions with other scientists. Indeed, challenges to new ideas are the legitimate business of science in building valid knowledge. It has always been a part of scientific inquiry to evaluate the results of the scientific investigations and the explanations proposed by others. Although scientists disagree about explanations of phenomena, interpretation of data, they do agree that questioning, response to criticism, and open communication are integral process of science.

In the long run, no scientist, however famous or highly placed, is empowered to decide for other scientists what is true, for none are believed by other scientists to have special access to the truth.

There is no Single Method to Create this Knowledge

It is a mistaken impression that there is one distinctive approach common to all science—a single “scientific method”.  It is thought that science is a sort of intellectual machine, which when one turns a crank called the ‘scientific method’, churns out the truth is sequential steps. But science is anything but monolithic. In reality, practicing scientists employ a broad spectrum of methods. It is a realm of great contrasts and non-uniformities.

Ex. There is something called as ‘Frontier Science’. It is exploratory and adventurous. Here ideas are tentative, going in and coming out rapidly. More often than not, these ideas are audacious guess or vague hunches that rarely conform to established patterns of thought. This science is raw. It is controversial, competitive, inefficient, governed considerably by the demands and urgencies of the moment and employing predominantly ad-hoc methods.

Then there is ‘Science of the Interior’. This type of science, by contrast, is that of the intellectual colonizers, who follow the pioneers, consolidate the gains, and establish order and respectability.