What is Science? – Definition, Discipline, Facts

Science: What do you think when you hear the word “science”? A big textbook, white lab coats and microscopes, an astronomer staring through a telescope, a naturalist in the rainforest, Einstein’s equations chalked on a chalkboard, the space shuttle launch, boiling beakers, etc. When you think of science, all these images come to mind. Yet none of these provides the full picture. This is because science contains so many facets, none of those images provides a complete picture.

Science is a process as well as a body of knowledge. Science may appear in school to be a collection of isolated and static facts contained in a textbook, yet this is only part of the picture. Science is also a discovery process that helps us to connect disparate information into coherent and comprehensive understandings of the natural world.

Definition of Science

Science is enthralling. Science is a method of discovering what exists in the universe and how it functions today, in the past, and in the future. Scientists are inspired by the thrill of discovering or discovering something previously unknown. Science is beneficial. Science produces powerful and trustworthy knowledge. It may be used to create new technology, treat diseases, and solve a variety of other issues.

Science is in progress. Science is always refining and expanding our understanding of the universe, posing new problems for future research. There is no such thing as “completed science”.

Science is a human undertaking that takes place all around the world. The scientific process includes people from all across the world. You can do it as well. Let’s dive into more of what science is in this blog.

History of Science

In the western world, the origins of science can be traced back to 3000 to 1200 BCE in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine influenced classical Greek natural philosophy, which sought to provide formal explanations for happenings in the physical world based on natural causes.

Knowledge of Greek worldviews decreased in Western Europe throughout the early Middle Ages (400 to 1000 CE) with the fall of the Western Roman Empire but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age.

In the Indian subcontinent, studies of all scientific subjects from archaeology to astronomy occurred around 8000 BCE. Mathematicians like Aryabhatta, and Bramhagupta were studying modern-day concepts like trigonometry long before the western world.

Science and Experiments

Have you ever made a baking soda volcano? Or tried to pull apart magnets that are stuck to each other? Congratulations, you’re a scientist, and you did an experiment. Every day, scientists all over the world test their hypotheses with experiments. Let’s define a few words for clarity.

Hypothesis: A hypothesis is a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. For instance, if you saw an ant walking away with a sugar cube, you may make a hypothesis that it is taking the sugar to its nest. Keep in mind, that for a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it.

Observation/ Experiment: To test the hypothesis, we can either conduct experiments, in which case we either manipulate the settings to be able to test the hypothesis, or recreate the experiment in a controlled environment inside the laboratory.

For some hypotheses though, like when we deal with natural history, we cannot do experiments. In such cases, we can observe the behaviour of the animals for an extended period of time, to test our hypothesis. Regardless, we have the observation stage where we observe what happens, either in the natural state or in the experiments.

Inference: Based on the data collected, we can conclude whether our hypothesis is true or not. We may find that our hypothesis fails to explain the phenomenon, or that we need to collect more data. Either way, we make conclusions from our observations. This stage is called the inference stage.