Science: Encyclopedia II - Science - What is science?

Science - What is science?

There are many different conceptions of the word "science".

According to empiricism, scientific theories are objective, empirically testable, and predictive — they predict empirical results that can be checked and possibly contradicted.

In contrast, scientific realism defines science in terms of ontology: science attempts to identify phenomena and entities in the environment, their causal powers, the mechanisms through which they exercise those powers, and the sources of those powers in terms of the thing's structure or internal nature.

Even in the empiricist tradition, we must be careful to understand that "prediction" refers to the outcome of an experiment or study, rather than to literally predicting the future. For example, to say, "a paleontologist may make predictions about finding a certain type of dinosaur" is consistent with the empiricist's use of prediction. On the other hand, sciences like geology or meteorology need not be able to make accurate predictions about earthquakes or the weather to qualify as sciences. Empiricist philosopher, Karl Popper also argued that certain verification is impossible and that scientific hypotheses can only be falsified (falsification).

Positivism, a form of empiricism, advocates using science, as defined by empiricism, to govern human affairs. Because of their close affiliation, the terms "positivism" and "empiricism" are often used interchangeably. Both have been subjected to criticisms:

• W. V. Quine demonstrated the impossibility of a theory-independent observation language, so the very notion of testing theories with facts is problematic.
• Observations are always theory-laden. Thomas Kuhn argued that science always involves "paradigms," sets of (often unstated) assumptions, rules, practices, etc. and that transitions from one paradigm to another generally does not involve verification or falsification of scientific theories. Moreover, he argued that science has not proceeded historically as the steady accumulation of facts, as the empiricist model implies.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "What is science?", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki