"Nothing should be more sacred to science than the ability to predict"
Or, if you like, science is hypotheses run through experiments to make theories.
Often used as a replacement to religion, although they are designed to fulfil completely different needs.
Science is a functional method of manipulating the world. It is differentiated from magic by the fact that magic is not required to be redesigned every time it doesn't work.
Science is. In theory.
Art Tatum (Below) makes the extraordinary claim that non-physical things are not science. I assume that this means that math, psychology, and time are not of interest to scientists, apart from their direct effects on physical objects. This could be a long and interesting discussion, but if anyone wants to debate about it, a new node should be started.
Science is about finding stuff that works. No more, no less.
Science is a process that has given rise to a body of knowledge. Science is not just that body of knowledge.
That body of knowledge is often venerated as "science" and used to beat the credulous over the head. This is often factually correct, but usually just turns them off what they think is science. Nobody likes to be told they are stupid by an arrogant nerd.
It is easy to use "science" as buzzword, a holy cow. To set it up as an icon to be worshipped, now that we've killed god.
Science, in essence, is just stuff that works. If it doesn't work, it's not science. This is the much-venerated scientific method. it is well explained in other writeups, but here is my take on it:
Any theory that lasts is going to end up with a good fit to reality. In short, it will work.
If you want to be strict about the way that you refer to a good theory, the theory is never true. The theory is not reality, it is just marks on paper. It is not the truth, It's only a model A theory is either more accurate in it's predictions of reality than another theory, or less so. It is simple or complex. It is elegant or not-so-elegant. It either has known flaws, or doesn't. It has been superceded or not. But it is never the absolute truth, the last word. All theories are accepted on a provisional basis, as they can be discarded if something better comes along.
Some say in the postmodern fashion that "all explanations of the world are just narratives, and all are equal". I agree with the first part. Yes, the theories that come from the scientific method are just narratives. But not all narratives are equal. They can be judged according to their fitness to their purpose. A kind of natural selection applies.
For instance, a hunter-gatherer jungle tribe might have a explanation that the world was created by being hatched a cosmic egg laid by the celestial duck. This story can be judged according to its fitness to its purposes: to give an answer to kids who ask "why?" to everything which gives them a sense of wonder, to reinforce the power base of the shamans, and so on.
A scientific theory is one that is judged according to criteria that strive towards some kind of complete truth, i.e. a 100% accurate description of how the real world works. I'm not claiming either that we can or can't have a perfectly accurate description of the world, just that we can and do strive toward it.
A scientific theory is judged good if it not conflict with any known fact about reality: It must not be provably false, and it is better if it makes testable predictions about things yet unobserved. It must be falsifiable and the experiments must be repeatable by others.
Science works because in part it harnesses the human ego: if you can disprove someone else's theory or come up with a better one, you will be noticed. It is a free market of ideas. It is competitive. It has natural selection.
If something occurs, then there by definition is a scientific explanation for it. To take an extreme example, we haven't come to believe the theory that our reality is controlled by a big guy with a long beard, but if there was strong evidence that this was a better theory than what we find in modern physics, then it would be a scientific one.
For instance, what is alternative medicine? If a treatment was proven to have an effect, even if we had no idea why, it would be assimilated into scientific medicine. Of course, the effect would have to be consistent and not just the placebo effect. And naturally, there would be intense interest in finding out why it works because of the predictions (ie new medicines) that could be made from knowing. Understanding is control. Knowledge is power.
Yes, there may be delays in assimilating new ideas due to egos and vested interests. But in the long run, it is inevitable. Alternative medicine is alternative to what works.
Hence the purveyor of any alternative treatment will try to market it as something that is going to soon be noticed by the mainstream. For instance, homeopathy is just about to gain mainstream credibility, and always will be.
The body of knowledge generated by science gets complex. That's because reality is complex, and people even more so. But the concept of science is an astoundingly simple one: It is just stuff that we know works.
First off, these studies are important and useful independent of if they fit the definition of science or not.
Secondly these studies all have one thing in common - they study the actions of human beings. As physical systems go, human beings are by far the most unpredictable, contrariwise, variable, self-referential systems you will ever encounter. How do you account for all variables that affect a person's actions? Getting them to do exactly the same thing twice is very difficult. How do you repeat a circumstance? If you are using the same persons as subjects, it's different, as they have done it before. If you use other people, then that's a difference.
It could be that simply we are studying the wrong level here, that a complete scientific understanding of say, economics (which itself requires some theory of mob psychology) is like trying to model the earth's weather with quark physics. Imagine trying to replicate your experiments with that model!
Thirdly if a result is only statistical, then that statistic is itself a result. If you can only produce a given result half the time, then others should also be able to verify that 50% mark.
The papers published in Science are generally shorter than those in normal scientific publications. There are several categories of papers that are published in Science. The principal papers in the journal are called Research Articles. Research articles are roughly 4500 words long, and are expected to present a major advance in the scientific field in question. These articles may have up to six figures or tables, and may cite up to 40 references. In recent years, authors have been permitted to supplement the material in research articles with information kept online. Reports are more numerous than research articles, and can be up to 2500 words in length. These papers normally present important new information with broad significance. They may have up to 4 figures and tables, and may cite up to 30 references. Again, online information may supplement the publication.
They also publish even shorter reports, called Brevia (~800 words) and Technical Comments. Brevia may have one illustration, and are intended to summarize recent research results, and a more thorough publication likely occurs in another journal. Interdisciplinary research is favoured in the selection of brevia. Technical comments are only published online, and discuss papers previously published in Science. They are normally accompanied by a reply from the authors of the paper being discussed.
Other sections in the journal include Editorials, Book Reviews, Essays, Perspectives and Reviews.
The journal has a very high impact factor, and is one of the two best-known interdisciplinary scientific journals (it is second, in IF, to Nature). Given its interdisciplinary and prestigious nature, the journal gets numerous submissions and rejects upwards of 90 percent of the papers it receives.
The journal, along with its articles, can be found online at http://www.sciencemag.org. (Beware www.sciencemag.com, which takes you to what can only be called a domain name squatter).
Science:
Sci"ence (?), n. [F., fr. L. scientia, fr. sciens, -entis, p.pr. of scire to know. Cf. Conscience, Conscious, Nice.]
1.
Knowledge; knowledge of principles and causes; ascertained truth of facts.
If we conceive God's or science, before the creation, to be extended to all and every part of the world, seeing everything as it is, . . . his science or sight from all eternity lays no necessity on anything to come to pass. Hammond.
Shakespeare's deep and accurate science in mental philosophy. Coleridge.
2.
Accumulated and established knowledge, which has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws; knowledge classified and made available in work, life, or the search for truth; comprehensive, profound, or philosophical knowledge.
All this new science that men lere [teach]. Chaucer.
Science is . . . a complement of cognitions, having, in point of form, the character of logical perfection, and in point of matter, the character of real truth. Sir W. Hamilton.
3.
Especially, such knowledge when it relates to the physical world and its phenomena, the nature, constitution, and forces of matter, the qualities and function of living tissues, etc.; -- called also natural science, and physical science.
Voltaire hardly left a single corner of the field entirely unexplored in science, poetry, history, philosophy. J. Morley.
4.
Any branch or departament of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study; as, the science of astronomy, of chemistry, or of mind.
The ancients reckoned seven sciences, namely, grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy; -- the first three being included in the Trivium, the remaining four in the Quadrivium.
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, And though no science, fairly worth the seven. Pope.
5.
Art, skill, or expertness, regarded as the result of knowledge of laws and principles.
His science, coolness, and great strength. G. A. Lawrence.
Science is applied or pure. Applied science is a knowledge of facts, events, or phenomena, as explained, accounted for, or produced, by means of powers, causes, or laws. Pure science is the knowledge of these powers, causes, or laws, considered apart, or as pure from all applications. Both these terms have a similar and special signification when applied to the science of quantity; as, the applied and pure mathematics. Exact science is knowledge so systematized that prediction and verification, by measurement, experiment, observation, etc., are possible. The mathematical and physical sciences are called the exact sciences.
Comparative sciences, Inductive sciences. See under Comparative, and Inductive.
Syn. -- Literature; art; knowledge. -- Science, Literature, Art. Science is literally knowledge, but more usually denotes a systematic and orderly arrangement of knowledge. In a more distinctive sense, science embraces those branches of knowledge of which the subject-matter is either ultimate principles, or facts as explained by principles or laws thus arranged in natural order. The term literature sometimes denotes all compositions not embraced under science, but usually confined to the belles-lettres. [See Literature.] Art is that which depends on practice and skill in performance. "In science, scimus ut sciamus; in art, scimus ut producamus. And, therefore, science and art may be said to be investigations of truth; but one, science, inquires for the sake of knowledge; the other, art, for the sake of production; and hence science is more concerned with the higher truths, art with the lower; and science never is engaged, as art is, in productive application. And the most perfect state of science, therefore, will be the most high and accurate inquiry; the perfection of art will be the most apt and efficient system of rules; art always throwing itself into the form of rules."
Karslake.
© Webster 1913.
Sci"ence, v. t.
To cause to become versed in science; to make skilled; to instruct.
Francis.
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