What is science?
To “do science” is to follow a prescribed method to arrive at knowledge. The “scientific method” is not a belief system or religious dogma, but rather a manner of thinking and working towards more complete knowledge of the world. It has been proven to be extremely successful in:
- explaining the world as we observe it;
- predicting what can be further observed, e.g. new observations, new locations, repeat observations, the effect of interventions;
- engineering, i.e. building things that work.
Science is not prescriptive – it can not say what “ought” to be done. It can, however, point out the probable consequences of certain actions, as objectively as possible.
Characteristics of scientific knowledge
- Self-criticism
- Evidence-based
- Theory-based
- Transparency
- No appeal to authority
Types of sciences
- Scientific activity can be classified as experimental, observational, or historical. All three require a separate step of model building.
- Experimental
- Observational
- Historical
Key points of scientific method
- The scientific method is a manner of thinking and working towards more complete knowledge of the world.
- To be scientific, a statement must, in principle, be falsifiable.
- Sciences may be classified as experimental, observational, or historical.
- There are many forms of scientific inference, with different logical foundations and degrees of rigour. to lax.
- Scientific explanation is linked to causality. A parsimonious explanation is preferred.
- A scientific statement may be a fact, hypothesis, theory, or law, each with a level of certainty.
- An important type of scientific reasoning is deductive-inductive.
- Scientific explanation requires sound logical thinking.
