Introduction to the study of Science

• Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organizes knowledge into testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe.

Branches of Science

• Natural sciences study the physical world (e.g., physics, chemistry, biology).
• Social sciences study individuals and societies (e.g., economics, psychology, sociology).
• Applied sciences use scientific knowledge for practical purposes (e.g., engineering, medicine).
• Logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science rely on deductive reasoning rather than the scientific method or empirical evidence.

History of Science

• Earliest predecessors date to the Bronze Age in Egypt and Mesopotamia (c. 3000–1200 BCE).
• These civilizations contributed to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, influencing Greek natural philosophy.
• Advancements, including the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, occurred during the Golden Age of India.
• Scientific research declined after the fall of the Western Roman Empire during the Early Middle Ages (400–1000 CE).
• Scholarship flourished again during the Medieval renaissances (Carolingian, Ottonian, and the 12th century Renaissance).
• Greek manuscripts were preserved and expanded upon in the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age.
• Byzantine Greek scholars brought Greek manuscripts to Western Europe, aiding the Renaissance.
• The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th centuries revived natural philosophy.
• The Scientific Revolution began in the 16th century, introducing new ideas and discoveries.
• The scientific method emerged as an essential approach to probing natural phenomena.
• Institutional and professional features of science began to take shape in the 19th century, along with the shift from "natural philosophy" to "natural science."
• New scientific knowledge is advanced by research motivated by curiosity and problem-solving.
• Contemporary scientific research is highly collaborative, involving teams in various institutions.
• Practical impacts of scientific work have led to science policies that prioritize ethical and moral development of commercial products, armaments, health care, infrastructure, and environmental protection.

Etymology

• The word "science" has been used in Middle English since the 14th century.
• It comes from the Anglo-Norman "-cience," borrowed from the Latin "scientia," meaning "knowledge, awareness, understanding."
• "Scientia" is derived from "sciens," meaning "knowing," from "sciō," meaning "to know."
• The Proto-Italic language *skije- or *skijo- may have been the origin as meaning "to know," which may originate from Proto-Indo-European language as *skh1-ie, *skh1-io, meaning "to incise".
• Alternatively, sciō is regarded as back-formation of nescīre that may derive from Proto-Indo-European *sekH- in Latin secāre, or *skh2-, from *sḱʰeh2(i)- meaning "to cut".
• A "natural philosopher" or "man of science" were titles used to describe one who carried out scientific study.
• In 1834, William Whewell introduced the term "scientist."

Protoscience

• Scientific thinking emerged gradually over tens of thousands of years.
• Women likely played a central role in prehistoric science, as did religious rituals.
• "Protoscience" is used to describe past activities that resemble modern science, though this term can be considered denigrating.

Science in the Bronze Age

• Direct evidence of scientific processes becomes clearer with writing systems in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (c. 3000–1200 BCE).
• Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians contributed to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.

Ancient Egypt

• Developed a non-positional decimal numbering system.
• Solved practical problems using geometry.
• Developed a calendar.
• Healing therapies involved drug treatments and the supernatural.

Ancient Mesopotamia

• Used knowledge of natural chemicals for manufacturing pottery, faience, glass, soap, metals, lime plaster, and waterproofing.
• Studied animal physiology, anatomy, behavior, and astrology for divinatory purposes.
• Had an interest in medicine; the earliest prescriptions appeared in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur.
• Studied scientific subjects with practical or religious applications, with little interest in satisfying curiosity.

Classical Antiquity

• There was no direct ancient analogue of a modern scientist.
• Educated upper-class men performed investigations when they could afford the time.
• The concept of phusis, or nature, was not yet defined.

Pre-Socratic Philosophers

• These men were the first philosophers in the strict sense.
• The pre-Socratic philosophers were the first to clearly distinguish "nature" and "convention".

Milesian School

• Founded by Thales of Miletus, followed by Anaximander and Anaximenes.
• Attempted to explain natural phenomena without the supernatural.

Pythagoreans

• Developed a complex number philosophy.
• Contributed significantly to the development of mathematical science.

Atomism

• Leucippus and Democritus developed the theory of atoms.
• Epicurus developed a natural cosmology based on atomism.
• Epicurus adopted a "canon" establishing physical criteria of scientific truth.

Hippocrates

• Established systematic medical science.
• Known as "The Father of Medicine".

Socrates

• Applied philosophy to the study of human matters.
• The Socratic method, documented by Plato, is a dialectic method of hypothesis elimination.
• Socrates criticized the study of physics as too speculative and lacking self-criticism.

Aristotle

• Created a systematic program of teleological philosophy in the 4th century BCE.

Aristarchus of Samos

• Proposed a heliocentric model of the universe in the 3rd century BCE.
• The model was rejected because it was believed to violate the laws of physics.

Ptolemy

• Ptolemy's Almagest, containing a geocentric description of the Solar System, was accepted instead of the heliocentric model through the early Renaissance.

Archimedes of Syracuse

• Made major contributions to the beginnings of calculus.

Pliny the Elder

• A Roman writer and polymath.
• Wrote the encyclopaedia Natural History.

Decline in Western Europe

• The 5th century saw an intellectual decline due to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
• Knowledge of classical Greek conceptions deteriorated.
• Latin encyclopaedists like Isidore of Seville preserved ancient knowledge.

Byzantine Empire

• The Byzantine Empire preserved and improved prior learning.
• John Philoponus questioned Aristotle's physics in the 6th century, introducing the theory of impetus that inspired medieval scholars and Galileo Galilei.
• Natural phenomena were mainly examined via the Aristotelian approach.

Preservation of Texts

• Many Greek classical texts were preserved by the Byzantine Empire.
• Arabic translations were done by groups such as the Nestorians and the Monophysites, and later improved by Arabic scientists under the Abbasids.

Academy of Gondishapur

• The Sasanian Empire established the medical Academy of Gondishapur in the 6th and 7th centuries.
• It was considered the most important medical hub of the ancient world.

Islamic Golden Age

• Islamic study of Aristotelianism flourished in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.
• Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) used controlled experiments in his optical study.
• Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopaedia, was used until the 18th century.

Renaissance of the 12th Century

• By the 11th century, most of Europe had become Christian.
• In 1088, the University of Bologna emerged as the first university in Europe.
• Demand for Latin translation of ancient texts grew.
• Renaissance scholasticism in western Europe flourished.

Anatomy

• Medical teachers and students at Bologna began opening human bodies in the 13th century.
• This led to the first anatomy textbook based on human dissection by Mondino de Luzzi.

Optics

• Played a role in the inception of the Renaissance.
• Challenging long-held metaphysical ideas on perception.
• Contributing to technology such as the camera obscura and the telescope.
• Roger Bacon, Vitello, and John Peckham built a scholastic ontology upon a causal chain.
• The causal chain began with sensation, perception, and apperception of the individual and universal forms of Aristotle.
• A perspectivism model of vision was used by Renaissance artists, only using formal, material, and final causes.

16th Century

• Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a heliocentric model; planets revolve around the Sun.
• The theorem that the orbital periods are longer as the orbs are farther from the center disagreed with Ptolemy's model.
• Johannes Kepler shifted the focus from the eye to the propagation of light.
• Kepler discovered Kepler's laws of planetary motion.
• Kepler described is work as a search for the Harmony of the Spheres, holding onto Aristotelian metaphysics.
• Galileo made significant contributions to astronomy, physics, and engineering.
• Galileo was persecuted for writing about the heliocentric model.
• The printing press was widely used to publish scholarly arguments, including some that disagreed widely with contemporary ideas of nature.

Francis Bacon

• Emphasised experiment over contemplation.
• Questioned the Aristotelian concepts of formal and final cause.
• Promoted the idea that science should study the laws of nature and improve human life.

René Descartes

• Emphasised individual thought.
• Argued for mathematics rather than geometry in studying nature.

Age of Enlightenment

• Isaac Newton formed the foundation of classical mechanics with his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz incorporated terms from Aristotelian physics in a non-teleological way.
• Objects were considered as having no innate goals.
• Leibniz assumed all things work by the same natural laws, with no special formal or final causes.
• The value of science became producing wealth and inventions to improve human lives.
• Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies.
• Science was popularized among an increasingly literate population.
• Philosophers used Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, and Newton as guides in physical and social fields.
• The 18th century saw advancements in medicine and physics.
• Carl Linnaeus developed biological taxonomy.
• There was a new understanding of magnetism and electricity.
• Chemistry matured as a discipline.
• Ideas on society, human nature and economics evolved.
• Hume and Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed A Treatise of Human Nature.
• Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, a work on modern economics

19th Century

• Many distinguishing characteristics of contemporary modern science began to take shape.
• These included the transformation of the life and physical sciences.
• The frequent use of precision instruments.
• The emergence of terms such as "biologist", "physicist", and "scientist".
• Increased professionalisation and cultural authority.
• Industrialisation in numerous countries.
• Thriving popular science writings.
• The emergence of science journals.
• Psychology emerged as a separate discipline when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory for psychological research in 1879.
• Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858
• Darwin's theory was detailed in On the Origin of Species in 1859.
• Gregor Mendel presented his paper, "Experiments on Plant Hybridisation" in 1865 which outlined the principles of biological inheritance, serving as the basis for modern genetics.
• John Dalton suggested the modern atomic theory based on indivisible particles called atoms.
• Not all forms of energy have the same energy qualities.
• There was an increased understanding of the ease of conversion to useful work or to another form of energy, leading to the development of:
• The laws of thermodynamics
• The concept that the universe's free energy is constantly declining.
• Free energy is constantly declining in that the entropy of a closed universe increases over time.
• The electromagnetic theory was established by Hans Christian Ørsted, André-Marie Ampère, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Oliver Heaviside, and Heinrich Hertz.
• The discovery of X-rays inspired Henri Becquerel and Marie Curie to discover radioactivity in 1896.
• The discovery of radioactivity led to Marie Curie becoming the first person to win 2 Nobel Prizes.
• The electron, the first subatomic particle was found during that period.

20th Century

• Development of antibiotics and artificial fertilizers improved human living standards.
• Environmental issues such as ozone depletion, ocean acidification, eutrophication, and climate change came to the public's attention.
• Scientific experimentation became increasingly larger in scale and funding.
• Technological innovation stimulated by the World Wars and the Cold War led to competitions, such as the:
• Space Race
• Nuclear arms race
• Despite some armed conflicts, substantial international collaborations were made.
• Active recruitment of women during the late 20th century and elimination of sex discrimination greatly increased the number of women scientists.
• The discovery of the cosmic microwave background in 1964 led to a rejection of the steady-state model of the universe in favor of the Big Bang theory.
• Evolution became a unified theory when the modern synthesis reconciled Darwinian evolution with classical genetics.
• Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and the development of quantum mechanics complement classical mechanics.
• Widespread integrated circuits combined with communications satellites led to a revolution in information technology.
• This included the rise of the global internet and mobile computing.
• The Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, identifying all human genes.
• Induced pluripotent human stem cells were made in 2006.
• The affirmation of the Higgs boson discovery in 2013 completed the particle physics Standard Model.
• Gravitational waves predicted by general relativity were observed in 2015, a century later.
• In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope presented the first direct image of a black hole's accretion disc.

Modern Science Branches

• Natural science is the study of the physical world, divided into life science and physical science.
• Physical science includes physics, chemistry, astronomy, and earth science.
• Social science is the study of human behavior and societies, including anthropology, economics, history, geography, political science, psychology, and sociology.
• Formal science generates knowledge using formal systems, including mathematics, systems theory, and computer science.
• Natural and social sciences rely on empirical observations, tested for validity.
• Formal sciences rely on deductive reasoning without empirical evidence and are considered a priori.
• Calculus was initially invented to understand motion in physics.
• Applied science attains practical goals and includes engineering and medicine.

Engineering

• Engineering invents, designs and builds machines, structures and technologies with the use of scientific principles.

Medicine

• Medicine cares for patients by maintaining and restoring health through the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of injury or disease.

Contrasts

• Applied sciences are often contrasted with the basic sciences.
• The basic sciences focus on advancing scientific theories and laws that explain and predict events in the natural world.
• Computational science: applies computing power to simulate real-world situations.
• Interdisciplinary science: the combination of two or more disciplines into one.

Scientific Research

• Scientific research can be labelled basic or applied research.
• Basic research seeks knowledge.
• Applied research seeks solutions to practical problems using this knowledge.
• Scientific research uses the scientific method to explain events objectively and reproducibly.
• Scientists assume an objective reality governed by natural laws.
• These laws were discovered by systematic observation and experimentation.

Role of Mathematics

• Mathematics is essential in the formation of hypotheses, theories, and laws.
• It's used extensively in quantitative modeling, observing, and collecting measurements.
• Statistics are used to summarise and analyse data.
• Allowing scientists to assess the reliability of experimental results.
• Explanations should seek consilience, fitting with other accepted facts.
• Tentative explanations should make falsifiable predictions.
• Predicted disproof of a prediction is evidence of progress.
• Experimentation helps establish causal relationships, avoiding the correlation fallacy.
• Hypotheses that prove unsatisfactory are modified or discarded.

Scientific Theories

• Hypotheses that survive testing may become adopted into the framework of a scientific theory.
• A theory describes the behaviour of broader sets of observations than a hypothesis.
• Theories are formulated according to most of the same scientific principles as hypotheses.
• A model is an attempt to describe or depict an observation.

Transparency in Experiments

• Researchers may prefer one outcome over another when performing experiments to test hypotheses
• Eliminating the bias can be achieved through transparency, careful experimental design, and a thorough peer review process.
• Independent researchers double-check how the research was performed, and to follow up by performing similar experiments.
• The scientific method allows creative problem solving while minimising subjective effects and confirmation bias.
• Intersubjective verifiability (consensus and reproducible results) underpins scientific knowledge.
• Scientific research is published in journals that serve as an archival record of science.
• Journal des sçavans followed by Philosophical Transactions, began publication in 1665 as the first scientific journals .
• Science has become so pervasive in modern societies that it is considered necessary to communicate the achievements, news, and ambitions of scientists to a wider population..

Replication Crisis

• Replication crisis is an ongoing methodological crisis that affects parts of the social and life sciences.
• The results of many scientific studies have been proven unrepeatable.
• The crisis has long-standing roots.
• The phrase was coined in the early 2010s as part of a growing awareness of the problem.
• The replication crisis represents an important body of research in metascience.
• It aims to improve the quality of all scientific research
• It seeks to achieve those aims while reducing waste.

Pseudoscience

• Pseudoscience, fringe science, or junk science masquerades as science to claim legitimacy that it would otherwise be unable to achieve.
• "Cargo cult science" describes researchers who believe they are doing science but lack the honesty to allow rigorous evaluation of their results.
• Commercial advertising may fall into these categories.
• Science has been described as "the most important tool" for separating valid claims from invalid ones.
• Research may be "bad science" if it is incorrect, obsolete, incomplete, or over-simplified.

Scientific Misconduct

• "Scientific misconduct" refers to intentional misrepresentation of published data or giving credit to the wrong person.

Philosophy of Science

• Empiricism holds that knowledge is created by observation and that scientific theories generalise observations.
• Empiricism encompasses inductivism, explaining how general theories arise from empirical evidence.
• Key versions of empiricism include Bayesianism and the hypothetico-deductive method.
• Empiricism contrasts with rationalism, which holds that knowledge is created by the human intellect.
• Karl Popper defined critical rationalism, rejecting empiricism's view of the theory-observation connection.
• Popper claimed that theories are not generated by observation, but that observation is made in the light of theories.
• Popper proposed replacing verifiability with falsifiability as the landmark of scientific theories, and replacing induction with falsification.
• Popper claimed that there is only one universal method: the negative method of criticism, trial and error, covering all products of the human mind.
• Instrumentalism emphasises the utility of theories for explaining and predicting phenomena.
• Constructive empiricism dictates that a theory's success lies in its truth about observable entities.
• Thomas Kuhn argued that observation and evaluation occur within a paradigm, a logically consistent "portrait" of the world.
• Kuhn described normal science as "puzzle solving" within a paradigm.
• Revolutionary science occurs when one paradigm overtakes another in a paradigm shift.
• Each paradigm has its own questions, aims, and interpretations.
• Paradigm choice involves setting two or more "portraits" against the world.
• Paradigm shifts occur when observational anomalies arise in the old paradigm.
• A new paradigm makes sense of those anomalies.
• Kuhn states that acceptance or rejection of a paradigm is a social process as much as a logical process.
• Methodological naturalism states that a difference should be made between natural and supernatural, and science should be restricted to natural explanations.
• Science requires strict adherence to empirical study and independent verification.

Scientific Community

• The scientific community is a network of interacting scientists who conduct scientific research.
• It consists of smaller groups working in scientific fields.
• Scientists maintain research quality and objectivity through peer review, discussion, and debate.
• Scientists conduct research to advance knowledge and apply it for public benefit.
• Career paths for scientists exists in government, academia, industries and non-profits organizations.
• Academic Institutions often require advanced degrees and specific research requirements, such as time served, publications, and committee hearings.
• Learned societies promote scientific thought and experimentation.
• Membership requirements include scientific credentials or election.
• Scientific societies are typically non-profit organisations performing regular conferences and academic journals.

Professionalisation of Science

• Professionalisation of science, begun in the 19th century, was enabled by national academies of sciences.
• International scientific organisations cooperate for science advancement.
• Science awards are given to individuals or organisations that have made significant contributions.
• The Nobel Prize is awarded annually for scientific advances in medicine, physics, and chemistry.
• Scientific research is funded through competitive processes run by government, corporations, or foundations.
• Total research funding in developed countries is between 1.5% and 3% of GDP.
• Commercial research focuses on near-term commercialisation.
• Science policy affects the conduct of scientific enterprise, including research funding.
• It also applies scientific knowledge to public policy development.
• Public policy concerns about citizen well-being are a result of science policy's goal to consider science and technology in public services
• Public policy can directly affect the funding of capital equipment and intellectual infrastructure.
• Tax incentives can be provided to those organisations that fund research.

Science Education

• For the general public science education is embedded in the school curriculum.
• It is supplemented by online content, museums, science magazines, and blogs.
• Major organisations such as the AAAS see sciences as part of the liberal arts of learning.
• Scientific literacy concerns understanding the scientific method, measurement, empiricism, statistics, and core scientific fields.
• Curriculum becomes more in depth in higher stages of formal education.
• Subjects include natural and formal sciences, and social and applied science more recently.
• Mass media face pressures preventing accurate depictions of competing scientific claims.
• Determining weight of sides in a scientific debate may require expertise; journalists may lack scientific knowledge.
• Science magazines provide non-technical summaries of research.
• Science fiction transmits the scientific ideas to the general public.

Science & Non-Scientific Disciplines

• Recent efforts to intensify/develop links between science and non-scientific disciplines have presented the Creative Writing Science resource developed through the Royal Literary Fund.
• While the scientific method is broadly accepted in the scientific community, some fractions of society reject certain scientific positions or are sceptical about science.
• Rejection of scientific results is caused in part by fear of rejection in social groups.
• Attitudes towards science are often determined by political opinions and goals.
• Government, business and advocacy groups have been known to use legal and economic pressure to influence scientific researchers.
• Facets may act as the politicisation of science such as anti-intellectualism, perceived threats to religious beliefs, and fear for business interests.
• Politicisation of science may involve emphasising the uncertainty of scientific evidence.
• Shifting conversation, acknowledging facts, and capitalising on doubt have been used to gain attention for undermined views.
• Examples of issues that have involved the politicisation of science include the global warming controversy, pesticide health effects, and tobacco health effects.

Science systematically builds knowledge into testable predictions about the universe. It includes natural sciences like physics and social sciences like psychology. Applied sciences use this knowledge for practical applications.