What is Science?
The word science comes from the Latin “scientia” meaning knowledge.
How do we define science? According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of science is “knowledge attained through study or practice,” or “knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world.”
What does that really mean? Science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge. This system uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena.
The term science also refers to the organized body of knowledge people have gained using that system. Less formally, the word science often describes any systematic field of study or the knowledge gained from it.
What is the purpose of science? Perhaps the most general description is that the purpose of science is to produce useful models of reality.
Most scientific investigations use some form of the scientific method.
Science as defined above is sometimes called pure science to differentiate it from applied science, which is the application of research to human needs. Fields of science are commonly classified along two major lines:
- Natural sciences, the study of the natural world, and
- Social sciences, the systematic study of human behavior and society.
The Different Fields of Science
The branches of science (also referred to as “sciences”, “scientific fields”, or “scientific disciplines”) are commonly divided into four major groups: natural sciences, which study natural phenomena (including fundamental forces and biological life), formal sciences (such as mathematics and logic, which use an a priori, as opposed to factual, methodology), social sciences, which study human behavior and societies, and applied sciences, which apply existing scientific knowledge to develop more practical applications, like technology or inventions.
The natural sciences and social sciences are empirical sciences, meaning that the knowledge must be based on observable phenomena and must be capable of being verified by other researchers working under the same conditions.
Natural science, social science, and formal science make up the fundamental sciences, which form the basis of interdisciplinary and applied sciences such as engineering and medicine. Specialized scientific disciplines that exist in multiple categories may include parts of other scientific disciplines but often possess their own terminologies and expertises.
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