Scientific practice

Although encyclopedias such as Pliny's (fl. 77 AD) Natural History offered purported fact, they proved unreliable. A skeptical point of view, demanding a method of proof, was the practical position taken to deal with unreliable knowledge. As early as 1000 years ago, scholars such as Alhazen (Doubts Concerning Ptolemy), Roger Bacon, Witelo, John Pecham, Francis Bacon (1605), and C. S. Peirce (1839–1914) provided the community to address these points of uncertainty. In particular, fallacious reasoning can be exposed, such as "affirming the consequent."

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."

— Francis Bacon, "The Advancement of Learning", Book 1, v, 8

The methods of inquiry into a problem have been known for thousands of years,^[95] and extend beyond theory to practice. The use of measurements, for example, is a practical approach to settle disputes in the community.
John Ziman points out that intersubjective pattern recognition is fundamental to the creation of all scientific knowledge.^[96]:p44 Ziman shows how scientists can identify patterns to each other across centuries; he refers to this ability as "perceptual consensibility."^[97]:p46 He then makes consensibility, leading to consensus, the touchstone of reliable knowledge.^[97]:p104

Basic and applied research

Anthropogenic pollution has an effect on the Earth's environment and climate

Although some scientific research is applied research into specific problems, a great deal of our understanding comes from the curiosity-driven undertaking of basic research. This leads to options for technological advance that were not planned or sometimes even imaginable. This point was made by Michael Faraday when allegedly in response to the question "what is the use of basic research?" he responded: "Sir, what is the use of a new-born child?".^[98] For example, research into the effects of red light on the human eye's rod cells did not seem to have any practical purpose; eventually, the discovery that our night vision is not troubled by red light would lead search and rescue teams (among others) to adopt red light in the cockpits of jets and helicopters.^{[87]:106–110} In a nutshell, basic research is the search for knowledge and applied research is the search for solutions to practical problems using this knowledge. Finally, even basic research can take unexpected turns, and there is some sense in which the scientific method is built to harness luck.

Research in practice

Due to the increasing complexity of information and specialization of scientists, most of the cutting-edge research today is done by well-funded groups of scientists, rather than individuals.^[99] D.K. Simonton notes that due to the breadth of very precise and far reaching tools already used by researchers today and the amount of research generated so far, creation of new disciplines or revolutions within a discipline may no longer be possible as it is unlikely that some phenomenon that merits its own discipline has been overlooked. Hybridizing of disciplines and finessing knowledge is, in his view, the future of science.^[99]

Certainty and science

A scientific theory is empirical^{[nb 17][85]} and is always open to falsification if new evidence is presented. That is, no theory is ever considered strictly certain as science accepts the concept of fallibilism.^{[nb 19]} The philosopher of science Karl Popper sharply distinguished truth from certainty. He wrote that scientific knowledge "consists in the search for truth," but it "is not the search for certainty ... All human knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain."^[86]:p4
New scientific knowledge rarely results in vast changes in our understanding. According to psychologist Keith Stanovich, it may be the media's overuse of words like "breakthrough" that leads the public to imagine that science is constantly proving everything it thought was true to be false.^{[87]:119–138} While there are such famous cases as the theory of relativity that required a complete reconceptualization, these are extreme exceptions. Knowledge in science is gained by a gradual synthesis of information from different experiments by various researchers across different branches of science; it is more like a climb than a leap.^[87]:123 Theories vary in the extent to which they have been tested and verified, as well as their acceptance in the scientific community.^{[nb 20]} For example, heliocentric theory, the theory of evolution, relativity theory, and germ theory still bear the name "theory" even though, in practice, they are considered factual.^[88] Philosopher Barry Stroud adds that, although the best definition for "knowledge" is contested, being skeptical and entertaining the possibility that one is incorrect is compatible with being correct. Ironically, then, the scientist adhering to proper scientific approaches will doubt themselves even once they possess the truth.^[89] The fallibilist C. S. Peirce argued that inquiry is the struggle to resolve actual doubt and that merely quarrelsome, verbal, or hyperbolic doubt is fruitless^[90]—but also that the inquirer should try to attain genuine doubt rather than resting uncritically on common sense.^[91] He held that the successful sciences trust not to any single chain of inference (no stronger than its weakest link) but to the cable of multiple and various arguments intimately connected.^[92]
Stanovich also asserts that science avoids searching for a "magic bullet"; it avoids the single-cause fallacy. This means a scientist would not ask merely "What is the cause of ...", but rather "What are the most significant causes of ...". This is especially the case in the more macroscopic fields of science (e.g. psychology, physical cosmology).^{[87]:141–147} Of course, research often analyzes few factors at once, but these are always added to the long list of factors that are most important to consider.^{[87]:141–147} For example, knowing the details of only a person's genetics, or their history and upbringing, or the current situation may not explain a behavior, but a deep understanding of all these variables combined can be very predictive.

Political usage

See also: Politicization of science

Many issues damage the relationship of science to the media and the use of science and scientific arguments by politicians. As a very broad generalisation, many politicians seek certainties and facts whilst scientists typically offer probabilities and caveats. However, politicians' ability to be heard in the mass media frequently distorts the scientific understanding by the public. Examples in the United Kingdom include the controversy over the MMR inoculation, and the 1988 forced resignation of a Government Minister, Edwina Currie, for revealing the high probability that battery farmed eggs were contaminated with Salmonella.^[69]
John Horgan, Chris Mooney, and researchers from the US and Canada have described Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods (SCAMs), where an organization or think tank makes it their only goal to cast doubt on supported science because it conflicts with political agendas.^{[70][71][72][73]} Hank Campbell and microbiologist Alex Berezow have described "feel-good fallacies" used in politics, especially on the left, where politicians frame their positions in a way that makes people feel good about supporting certain policies even when scientific evidence shows there is no need to worry or there is no need for dramatic change on current programs.^{[74]: Vol. 78, No. 1. 2–38}

Science and the public

Various activities are developed to facilitate communication between the general public and science/scientists, such as science outreach, public awareness of science, science communication, science festivals, citizen science, science journalism, public science, and popular science. See Science and the public for related concepts.
Science is represented by the 'S' in STEM fields.

Philosophy of science

See also: Philosophy of science

Working scientists usually take for granted a set of basic assumptions that are needed to justify the scientific method: (1) that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers; (2) that this objective reality is governed by natural laws; (3) that these laws can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation.^[15] Philosophy of science seeks a deep understanding of what these underlying assumptions mean and whether they are valid.
The belief that scientific theories should and do represent metaphysical reality is known as realism. It can be contrasted with anti-realism, the view that the success of science does not depend on it being accurate about unobservable entities such as electrons. One form of anti-realism is idealism, the belief that the mind or consciousness is the most basic essence, and that each mind generates its own reality.^{[nb 16]} In an idealistic world view, what is true for one mind need not be true for other minds.

The Sand Reckoner is a work by Archimedes in which he sets out to determine an upper bound for the number of grains of sand that fit into the universe. In order to do this, he had to estimate the size of the universe according to the contemporary model, and invent a way to analyze extremely large numbers.

There are different schools of thought in philosophy of science. The most popular position is empiricism,^{[nb 17]} which holds that knowledge is created by a process involving observation and that scientific theories are the result of generalizations from such observations.^[75] Empiricism generally encompasses inductivism, a position that tries to explain the way general theories can be justified by the finite number of observations humans can make and hence the finite amount of empirical evidence available to confirm scientific theories. This is necessary because the number of predictions those theories make is infinite, which means that they cannot be known from the finite amount of evidence using deductive logic only. Many versions of empiricism exist, with the predominant ones being Bayesianism^[76] and the hypothetico-deductive method.^[77]:p236
Empiricism has stood in contrast to rationalism, the position originally associated with Descartes, which holds that knowledge is created by the human intellect, not by observation.^[77]:p20 Critical rationalism is a contrasting 20th-century approach to science, first defined by Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper. Popper rejected the way that empiricism describes the connection between theory and observation. He claimed that theories are not generated by observation, but that observation is made in the light of theories and that the only way a theory can be affected by observation is when it comes in conflict with it.^{[77]:pp63–7} Popper proposed replacing verifiability with falsifiability as the landmark of scientific theories and replacing induction with falsification as the empirical method.^[77]:p68 Popper further claimed that there is actually only one universal method, not specific to science: the negative method of criticism, trial and error.^[78] It covers all products of the human mind, including science, mathematics, philosophy, and art.^[79]
Another approach, instrumentalism, colloquially termed "shut up and multiply,"^[80] emphasizes the utility of theories as instruments for explaining and predicting phenomena.^[81] It views scientific theories as black boxes with only their input (initial conditions) and output (predictions) being relevant. Consequences, theoretical entities, and logical structure are claimed to be something that should simply be ignored and that scientists shouldn't make a fuss about (see interpretations of quantum mechanics). Close to instrumentalism is constructive empiricism, according to which the main criterion for the success of a scientific theory is whether what it says about observable entities is true.
Paul Feyerabend advanced the idea of epistemological anarchism, which holds that there are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science or the growth of knowledge and that the idea that science can or should operate according to universal and fixed rules are unrealistic, pernicious and detrimental to science itself.^[82] Feyerabend advocates treating science as an ideology alongside others such as religion, magic, and mythology, and considers the dominance of science in society authoritarian and unjustified. He also contended (along with Imre Lakatos)^[discuss] that the demarcation problem of distinguishing science from pseudoscience on objective grounds is not possible and thus fatal to the notion of science running according to fixed, universal rules.^[82] Feyerabend also stated that science does not have evidence for its philosophical precepts, particularly the notion of uniformity of law and process across time and space.^[83]
Finally, another approach often cited in debates of scientific skepticism against controversial movements like "creation science" is methodological naturalism. Its main point is that a difference between natural and supernatural explanations should be made and that science should be restricted methodologically to natural explanations.^{[nb 18]} That the restriction is merely methodological (rather than ontological) means that science should not consider supernatural explanations itself, but should not claim them to be wrong either. Instead, supernatural explanations should be left a matter of personal belief outside the scope of science. Methodological naturalism maintains that proper science requires strict adherence to empirical study and independent verification as a process for properly developing and evaluating explanations for observable phenomena.^[84] The absence of these standards, arguments from authority, biased observational studies and other common fallacies are frequently cited by supporters of methodological naturalism as characteristic of the non-science they criticize.

Science and society

Women in science

Main article: Women in science

Marie Curie was the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes, Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911^[58]

Science has historically been a male-dominated field, with some notable exceptions.^{[nb 14]} Women faced considerable discrimination in science, much as they did in other areas of male-dominated societies, such as frequently being passed over for job opportunities and denied credit for their work.^{[nb 15]} For example, Christine Ladd (1847–1930) was able to enter a PhD program as "C. Ladd"; Christine "Kitty" Ladd completed the requirements in 1882, but was awarded her degree only in 1926, after a career which spanned the algebra of logic (see truth table), color vision, and psychology. Her work preceded notable researchers like Ludwig Wittgenstein and Charles Sanders Peirce. The achievements of women in science have been attributed to their defiance of their traditional role as laborers within the domestic sphere.^[59]
In the late 20th century, active recruitment of women and elimination of institutional discrimination on the basis of sex greatly increased the number of women scientists, but large gender disparities remain in some fields; over half of new biologists are female, while 80% of PhDs in physics are given to men.^{[citation needed]} Feminists claim this is the result of culture rather than an innate difference between the sexes, and some experiments have shown that parents challenge and explain more to boys than girls, asking them to reflect more deeply and logically.^{[60]: 258–261.} In the early part of the 21st century, in America, women earned 50.3% bachelor's degrees, 45.6% master's degrees, and 40.7% of PhDs in science and engineering fields with women earning more than half of the degrees in three fields: Psychology (about 70%), Social Sciences (about 50%), and Biology (about 50-60%). However, when it comes to the Physical Sciences, Geosciences, Math, Engineering, and Computer Science, women earned less than half the degrees.^[61] However, lifestyle choice also plays a major role in female engagement in science; women with young children are 28% less likely to take tenure-track positions due to work-life balance issues,^[62] and female graduate students' interest in careers in research declines dramatically over the course of graduate school, whereas that of their male colleagues remains unchanged.^[63]

Science policy

Main articles: Science policy, History of science policy, Funding of science, and Economics of science

President Clinton meets the 1998 U.S. Nobel Prize winners in the White House

Science policy is an area of public policy concerned with the policies that affect the conduct of the scientific enterprise, including research funding, often in pursuance of other national policy goals such as technological innovation to promote commercial product development, weapons development, health care and environmental monitoring. Science policy also refers to the act of applying scientific knowledge and consensus to the development of public policies. Science policy thus deals with the entire domain of issues that involve the natural sciences. In accordance with public policy being concerned about the well-being of its citizens, science policy's goal is to consider how science and technology can best serve the public.
State policy has influenced the funding of public works and science for thousands of years, dating at least from the time of the Mohists, who inspired the study of logic during the period of the Hundred Schools of Thought, and the study of defensive fortifications during the Warring States period in China. In Great Britain, governmental approval of the Royal Society in the 17th century recognized a scientific community which exists to this day. The professionalization of science, begun in the 19th century, was partly enabled by the creation of scientific organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and state funding of universities of their respective nations. Public policy can directly affect the funding of capital equipment and intellectual infrastructure for industrial research by providing tax incentives to those organizations that fund research. Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development for the United States government, the forerunner of the National Science Foundation, wrote in July 1945 that "Science is a proper concern of government."^[64]
Science and technology research is often funded through a competitive process in which potential research projects are evaluated and only the most promising receive funding. Such processes, which are run by government, corporations, or foundations, allocate scarce funds. Total research funding in most developed countries is between 1.5% and 3% of GDP.^[65] In the OECD, around two-thirds of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20% and 10% respectively by universities and government. The government funding proportion in certain industries is higher, and it dominates research in social science and humanities. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g. biotechnology) government provides the bulk of the funds for basic scientific research. In commercial research and development, all but the most research-oriented corporations focus more heavily on near-term commercialisation possibilities rather than "blue-sky" ideas or technologies (such as nuclear fusion).

Media perspectives

The mass media face a number of pressures that can prevent them from accurately depicting competing scientific claims in terms of their credibility within the scientific community as a whole. Determining how much weight to give different sides in a scientific debate may require considerable expertise regarding the matter.^[66] Few journalists have real scientific knowledge, and even beat reporters who know a great deal about certain scientific issues may be ignorant about other scientific issues that they are suddenly asked to cover.^[67][68]

Scientific community

The scientific community is the group of all interacting scientists. It includes many sub-communities working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are also significant.

Branches and fields

Main article: Branches of science

The somatosensory system is located throughout our bodies but is integrated in the brain.

Scientific fields are commonly divided into two major groups: natural sciences, which study natural phenomena (including biological life), and social sciences, which study human behavior and societies. These are both empirical sciences, which means their knowledge must be based on observable phenomena and capable of being tested for its validity by other researchers working under the same conditions.^[44] There are also related disciplines that are grouped into interdisciplinary applied sciences, such as engineering and medicine. Within these categories are specialized scientific fields that can include parts of other scientific disciplines but often possess their own nomenclature and expertise.^[45]
Mathematics, which is classified as a formal science,^[46][47] has both similarities and differences with the empirical sciences (the natural and social sciences). It is similar to empirical sciences in that it involves an objective, careful and systematic study of an area of knowledge; it is different because of its method of verifying its knowledge, using a priori rather than empirical methods.^[48] The formal sciences, which also include statistics and logic, are vital to the empirical sciences. Major advances in formal science have often led to major advances in the empirical sciences. The formal sciences are essential in the formation of hypotheses, theories, and laws,^[49] both in discovering and describing how things work (natural sciences) and how people think and act (social sciences).
Apart from its broad meaning, the word "science" sometimes may specifically refer to fundamental sciences (maths and natural sciences) alone. Science schools or faculties within many institutions are separate from those for medicine or engineering, each of which is an applied science.

Institutions

Learned societies for the communication and promotion of scientific thought and experimentation have existed since the Renaissance period.^[50] The oldest surviving institution is the Italian Accademia dei Lincei which was established in 1603.^[51] The respective National Academies of Science are distinguished institutions that exist in a number of countries, beginning with the British Royal Society in 1660^[52] and the French Académie des Sciences in 1666.^[53]
International scientific organizations, such as the International Council for Science, have since been formed to promote cooperation between the scientific communities of different nations. Many governments have dedicated agencies to support scientific research. Prominent scientific organizations include the National Science Foundation in the U.S., the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina, CSIRO in Australia, Centre national de la recherche scientifique in France, the Max Planck Society and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Germany, and CSIC in Spain.

Literature

Main article: Scientific literature

An enormous range of scientific literature is published.^[54] Scientific journals communicate and document the results of research carried out in universities and various other research institutions, serving as an archival record of science. The first scientific journals, Journal des Sçavans followed by the Philosophical Transactions, began publication in 1665. Since that time the total number of active periodicals has steadily increased. In 1981, one estimate for the number of scientific and technical journals in publication was 11,500.^[55] The United States National Library of Medicine currently indexes 5,516 journals that contain articles on topics related to the life sciences. Although the journals are in 39 languages, 91 percent of the indexed articles are published in English.^[56]
Most scientific journals cover a single scientific field and publish the research within that field; the research is normally expressed in the form of a scientific paper. Science has become so pervasive in modern societies that it is generally considered necessary to communicate the achievements, news, and ambitions of scientists to a wider populace.
Science magazines such as New Scientist, Science & Vie, and Scientific American cater to the needs of a much wider readership and provide a non-technical summary of popular areas of research, including notable discoveries and advances in certain fields of research. Science books engage the interest of many more people. Tangentially, the science fiction genre, primarily fantastic in nature, engages the public imagination and transmits the ideas, if not the methods, of science.
Recent efforts to intensify or develop links between science and non-scientific disciplines such as literature or more specifically, poetry, include the Creative Writing Science resource developed through the Royal Literary Fund.^[57]

Mathematics and formal sciences

Mathematics is essential to the sciences. One important function of mathematics in science is the role it plays in the expression of scientific models. Observing and collecting measurements, as well as hypothesizing and predicting, often require extensive use of mathematics. For example, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus are all essential to physics. Virtually every branch of mathematics has applications in science, including "pure" areas such as number theory and topology.
Statistical methods, which are mathematical techniques for summarizing and analyzing data, allow scientists to assess the level of reliability and the range of variation in experimental results. Statistical analysis plays a fundamental role in many areas of both the natural sciences and social sciences.
Computational science applies computing power to simulate real-world situations, enabling a better understanding of scientific problems than formal mathematics alone can achieve. According to the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, computation is now as important as theory and experiment in advancing scientific knowledge.^[42]
Whether mathematics itself is properly classified as science has been a matter of some debate. Some thinkers see mathematicians as scientists, regarding physical experiments as inessential or mathematical proofs as equivalent to experiments. Others do not see mathematics as a science because it does not require an experimental test of its theories and hypotheses. Mathematical theorems and formulas are obtained by logical derivations which presume axiomatic systems, rather than the combination of empirical observation and logical reasoning that has come to be known as the scientific method. In general, mathematics is classified as formal science, while natural and social sciences are classified as empirical sciences.^[43]

Scientific method

he scientific method seeks to explain the events of nature in a reproducible way.^{[nb 11]} An explanatory thought experiment or hypothesis is put forward as explanation using principles such as parsimony (also known as "Occam's Razor") and are generally expected to seek consilience—fitting well with other accepted facts related to the phenomena.^[1] This new explanation is used to make falsifiable predictions that are testable by experiment or observation. The predictions are to be posted before a confirming experiment or observation is sought, as proof that no tampering has occurred. Disproof of a prediction is evidence of progress.^{[nb 12][nb 13]} This is done partly through observation of natural phenomena, but also through experimentation that tries to simulate natural events under controlled conditions as appropriate to the discipline (in the observational sciences, such as astronomy or geology, a predicted observation might take the place of a controlled experiment). Experimentation is especially important in science to help establish causal relationships (to avoid the correlation fallacy).
When a hypothesis proves unsatisfactory, it is either modified or discarded.^[34] If the hypothesis survived testing, it may become adopted into the framework of a scientific theory, a logically reasoned, self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of certain natural phenomena. A theory typically describes the behavior of much broader sets of phenomena than a hypothesis; commonly, a large number of hypotheses can be logically bound together by a single theory. Thus a theory is a hypothesis explaining various other hypotheses. In that vein, theories are formulated according to most of the same scientific principles as hypotheses. In addition to testing hypotheses, scientists may also generate a model, an attempt to describe or depict the phenomenon in terms of a logical, physical or mathematical representation and to generate new hypotheses that can be tested, based on observable phenomena.^[35]
While performing experiments to test hypotheses, scientists may have a preference for one outcome over another, and so it is important to ensure that science as a whole can eliminate this bias.^[36][37] This can be achieved by careful experimental design, transparency, and a thorough peer review process of the experimental results as well as any conclusions.^[38][39] After the results of an experiment are announced or published, it is normal practice for independent researchers to double-check how the research was performed, and to follow up by performing similar experiments to determine how dependable the results might be.^[40] Taken in its entirety, the scientific method allows for highly creative problem solving while minimizing any effects of subjective bias on the part of its users (especially the confirmation bias).^[41]