Some science characteristics They are objective analysis, the possibility of verifying experiments, specialization, practical utility, systematicity, verifiability, legality, among others..
The word "science" comes from the Latin "scientia”, Which means knowledge. Science is called the set of knowledge that is obtained thanks to the observation, reasoning and methodological experimentation of facts. These practices generate questions that later construct hypotheses that, if verified or not, become principles, laws and schemes to generalize results..
Science is the result of man's curiosity to know more about his environment. He exercises his curiosity to be able to be an observer, collector and identifier of the reality that surrounds him, describing their characteristics, giving them names and discovering their interactions.
The exercise of curiosity produces knowledge and, therefore, rational reasoning and arguments. Science is not infallible or static. On the contrary, it is susceptible of being in permanent review of the facts, of the discovery of new facts and of new conditions that can modify the results.
A striking example of the dynamism of science is that, if it were not, we would still take it for granted that the earth is flat and that it is the center of the universe..
Mario Bunge, Argentine physicist, mathematician, philosopher and humanist, defined science by dividing it into two large areas: formal sciences and factual sciences, the latter being those that use observation and experimentation in their methodology and serve to verify hypotheses that, according to the author, they are usually provisional.
According to this conception, a series of characteristics can then be attributed to science, which we list below.
He starts from the facts and always comes back to the facts. The scientist must respect them and distort them as little as possible with his intervention, without forgetting that the facts themselves are changing and that they can undergo modifications that must be contemplated by the researcher.
It goes beyond the facts as such, since thanks to its analysis, it can accept them but also discard them and use new ones that explain the object of study in greater detail..
The scientific fact does not arise from a mere observation; The decision of the researcher also intervenes to select the facts that he considers important, discard those that are not and propose hypotheses and theories that shed light on the subject investigated.
Scientific research addresses problems one by one and tries to fragment them, dividing them into small parts that facilitate the particular study of each one separately..
As he manages to explain each segment, he interconnects them and also gradually explains and recomposes the whole. Science studies partial problems to achieve general results.
With the passage of time and the expansion of knowledge, scientific research covers more and more specific aspects that can be studied.
This has resulted in the interdisciplinarity of research, where numerous areas of study complement each other and contribute their knowledge.
Regardless of which or which are the disciplines involved in the research, and although their degrees of development or complexity are different, or they handle different techniques, the scientific method will be rigorously applied to all of them to achieve the objectives pursued..
Science is based on rigorous studies that do not admit assumptions, opinions or understandings.
In scientific research, the registration of data or phenomena must be carried out accurately and the statements must be clear, as well as their results, without ever forgetting that they can always be fallible..
But it should not leave room for doubts, ambiguities or misinterpretations. That is one of the main qualities of science, its clarity, its unambiguous objective.
It is a fact that the intention and reason for being of science is to be able to communicate its principles and discoveries with the aim of achieving advances and changes in its field of study..
The objective of an investigation is to be able to communicate and share its findings, although it is usually done in a specialized language that can only be understood by those who are trained to do so..
This characteristic is what differentiates the scientific study from philosophical thought or from any other type of study..
Any investigation (understood as observation, experimentation, etc.) that yields a result for the first time, must be carried out many more times to corroborate its results..
Only then can the facts be taken as scientific truths, which will eventually become theories, principles and laws..
This is what is known as objective knowledge, which analyzes and verifies the facts through observation and experimentation..
All research that seeks to obtain serious and verifiable results, requires the elaboration and exhaustive monitoring of a planned and rigorous scientific methodology..
This method includes the prior planning of each step to be taken to achieve the result stated in the previous hypothesis..
In this planning, the researcher uses techniques that he is constantly refining and could even intentionally resort to random elements and factors to observe whether or not changes in the results occur..
But even these resources of chance must be previously thought out. The seriousness in the application of the methodology is what guarantees the veracity of the results.
Try to explain the facts in terms of laws and principles; that is, through proven and irrefutable premises.
Every scientist asks himself questions to answer: what happens? How does it happen? Why does it happen that way? It also tries to find out whether or not it may or may not happen otherwise and why such modifications may (or may not) happen..
The answer to these questions is what allows scientific knowledge to be generalized, diffused and adopted as truth.
Science not only studies events of the present, but thanks to them it can imagine or deduce how they were in the past and can also predict how they will be in the future, after analyzing behavior and events over time..
This characteristic of science is particularly visible and very useful, for example, in astronomy, where aspects such as weather (rains, snowfall, droughts), eclipses, solar movements, phenomena can be predicted more or less correctly. natural, etc., linking current observation with the study of historical patterns.
Prediction is always subject to being adjusted and refined, thereby improving theoretical knowledge as well..
No prior limitations are established. No field of study is forbidden to science and makes use of any resource or knowledge that can help advance research.
Science cannot be conceived in watertight compartments or as monolithic truths; on the contrary, a good scientist mistrusts, refutes, errs and constantly learns.
Precisely because of the rigor and objectivity of its methods, science is useful and reliable for other scholars and for the final achievement of truths and results applicable in everyday life..
Such is the case of technology that, according to Bunge, is nothing more than applied science.
Scientific knowledge is not a cluster of ideas or isolated and disconnected studies, but an interconnected system that follows rigorous patterns of analysis and experimentation protocols that cannot be ignored, altered or modified in any of its stages..
Science seeks, through its analysis and experimentation, to take the results and generalize them to larger cases, groups or areas of study..
The result of a study carried out in a certain way and under certain conditions can be extrapolated to other areas, as long as it has the same or similar conditions as the original case. This is what allows general universally applicable laws to be produced.
Scientific knowledge has as one of its functions the search for laws and their application. These laws are under constant observation and improvement.
Beyond Mario Bunge's classification, it can be said that science has other applicable characteristics.
For example, it could be said that it is concrete, because it studies specific problems and does not beat around the bush; on the contrary, it increasingly focuses its object of study. Ambiguity has no place in the scientific method.
This means that it is based on experimentation, on the verification of the theory to be able to accept as true the theoretical statements initially raised.
Science is free from prejudices, values or desires and has simple objectivity, since it accepts the facts as they are, and not as you would like them to be.
His only interest is knowledge and the values of the scientist cannot enter the scene when investigating.
Scientific knowledge is based on the repetition of circumstances, that is, they are reproducible at any time and place. Chance has no potential in science.
Finally, there are many other characteristics of scientific knowledge: it is controllable, abstract, logically consistent, testable, critical, grounded, and provisional. Many other authors also agree with a good part of Mario Bunge's classification.
Scientific method.
Branches of science.
Topics to present in class.
Yet No Comments