what is science

Hi,

Science is the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding1. It is done through observation of natural phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate natural processes under controlled conditions. (There are, of course, more definitions of science.)

Consider some examples. An ecologist observing the territorial behaviors of bluebirds and a geologist examining the distribution of fossils in an outcrop are both scientists making observations in order to find patterns in natural phenomena. They just do it outdoors and thus entertain the general public with their behavior. An astrophysicist photographing distant galaxies and a climatologist sifting data from weather balloons similarly are also scientists making observations, but in more discrete settings.

The examples above are observational science, but there is also experimental science. A chemist observing the rates of one chemical reaction at a variety of temperatures and a nuclear physicist recording the results of bombardment of a particular kind of matter with neutrons are both scientists performing experiments to see what consistent patterns emerge. A biologist observing the reaction of a particular tissue to various stimulants is likewise experimenting to find patterns of behavior. These folks usually do their work in labs and wear impressive white lab coats, which seems to mean they make more money too.

The critical commonality is that all these people are making and recording observations of nature, or of simulations of nature, in order to learn more about how nature, in the broadest sense, works. We'll see below that one of their main goals is to show that old ideas (the ideas of scientists a century ago or perhaps just a year ago) are wrong and that, instead, new ideas may better explain nature.

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.

So what does all this mean? It means that science does not presently, and probably never can, give statements of absolute eternal truth - it only provides theories. We know that those theories will probably be refined in the future, and some of them may even be discarded in favor of theories that make more sense in light of data generated by future scientists. However, our present theories are our best available explanations of the world. They explain, and have been tested against, a vast amount of information.

Consider some of the information against which we've tested our theories:

• We've examined the DNA, cells, tissues, organs, and bodies of thousands if not millions of species of organisms, from bacteria to cacti to great blue whales, at scales from electron microscopy to global ecology.

• We've examined the physical behaviour of particles ranging in size from quarks to stars and at times scales from femtoseconds to millions of years.

• We've characterized the 90 or so chemical elements that occur naturally on earth and several more that we've synthesized.

• We've poked at nearly every rock on the earth's surface and drilled as much as six miles into the earth to recover and examine more.

• We've used seismology to study the earth's internal structure, both detecting shallow faults and examining the behavior of the planet's core.

• We've studied the earth's oceans with dredges, bottles, buoys, boats, drillships, submersibles, and satellites.

• We've monitored and sampled Earth's atmosphere at a global scale on a minute-by-minute basis.

• We've scanned outer space with telescopes employing radiation ranging in wavelength from infrared to X-rays, and we've sent probes to examine both our sun and the distant planets of our solar system.

• We've personally explored the surface of our moon and brought back rocks from there, and we've sampled a huge number of meteorites to learn more about matter from beyond our planet.
We will do more in the centuries to come, but we've already assembled a vast array of information on which to build the theories that are our present scientific understanding of the universe.
This leaves people with a choice today. One option is to accept, perhaps with some skepticism, the scientific (and only theoretical) understanding of the natural world, which is derived from all the observations and measurements described above. The other option, or perhaps an other option, is to accept traditional understandings3 of the natural world developed centuries or even millennia ago by people who, regardless how wise or well-meaning, had only sharp eyes and fertile imaginations as their best tools.

Most scientific investigations use some form of the scientific method. Find out more about 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.

Hope that answers the question .

Thanks
Regards
Mustaq.K

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."

Science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge. This system uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena

e 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

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.

Science is the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding1. It is done through observation of natural phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate natural processes under controlled conditions.

The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

More information @ http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122science2.html