What is Science?

• Science is generally thought of as a field or discipline concerned with the acquisition of knowledge of the natural world, but this just part of a definition of science.

• Science is not just worldly knowledge, but a process for discovering information, and one of the most identifiable characteristics of science, is the ability to create and test hypotheses about the natural world.

• Many other disciplines ask questions, gather information, and make observations, but science differs from these fields through the nature of its testability. 

  • An idea is testable when it logically generates a set of expectations about what we should observe in a particular situation.

  • Testing involves figuring out what one would expect to observe if an idea were correct and comparing that expectation to what one actually observes.

  • Ideas that are not testable, nor in the natural world/universe, cannot be investigated by science

• The goal of science is to enable us to causally understand phenomena that we observe in the world

Science Learning

To create a broader definition, we can think of learning about science in many different ways:

1. Science as a way of exploring and investigating the world

   • Scientists explore nature and investigate the mechanisms that make it work

   • Investigations may occur in the field, or in a laboratory setting

2. Science as a way of thinking

   • Science needs rational, critical thought in order to succeed.

   • Since it is a human endeavor, science will always be fraught with subjectivity, but researchers are always trying to remain objective.

   • Skepticism (=withholding decisions until evidence is available) is crucial in science, and makes science a philosophically conservative endeavor.

3. Science as a body of knowledge

   • Science relies on the evidence and findings of other researchers. Through consensus, scientists in one field accept the peer-reviewed findings of others in different fields (e.g. physicists accept the theory of evolution, biologists accept the theory of plate tectonics, etc.)

   • Science is sometimes thought of being a discipline that collects facts (i.e. statements that we know to be true through direct observation). Since scientific ideas are inherently tentative, the term fact is more meaningful in everyday language than in the language of science.

   • Much more meaningful are scientific theories (i.e. in science, a broad, natural explanation for a wide range of phenomena). Theories are concise, coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable, often integrating and generalizing many hypotheses. Theories accepted by the scientific community are generally strongly supported by many different lines of evidence-but even theories may be modified or overturned if warranted by new evidence and perspectives. 

4. Science incorporated with technology and skills

   • Science is closely tied to the tools and technology that allow humans to investigate the world, but they are not the same thing.

   • Technology is a designed innovation that serves some practical function. 

   • Science and technology frequently contribute to one another — with scientific advances leading to the design of new technologies, and new technologies enabling new observations or tests that advance scientific knowledge

   • Many examples, such as the invention of the microscope, DNA sequencing, and computer modeling, have all advanced myriad fields of science.