Definition of Science. Explain Science

Science – All the concepts, theories, practices fall into one major group called science. Accumulation of knowledge pertaining to various fields like Physics, Biology, Mathematics, Zoology, Geography etc is science.  We will try to present all these forms of science in various posts and create a science encyclopedia at Explainstuff.com which is a science website with a science blog. We try to maintain our content related to science stuff.

We can define science in a variety of ways. But the most appropriate would go like this:

Definition of Science:

Science is systematic and organised gaining of knowledge that is derived from observations, which are verified and tested thoroughly. Accumulation of facts, discovering and  inventing new theories depending on these facts can also be termed as science.

What is science?

Science is divided into a few categories like Applied Science, Experimental Science, pure science etc. Each of these need to be explained separately. This post just concentrates on what and how science must have come into existence from the author’s perspective.

Generally most people believe science only comprises of Physics, Biology and Chemistry. But, it is not true. Science can be used to refer to any type of processed knowledge. It encompasses various fields if not all fields of study that have been categorised. There is very little difference in between Knowledge and science. All these fields are inter-linked with each other.

Like, in order to design a motor vehicle, we need both an electrical engineer and a mechanical engineer. Actually, we also need an electronics engineer these days to do all the circuits, and boards to give that artificial intelligence touch to the vehicle. This means that in real world, though we specialize in specific fields of science, we bring the fields together to complete the world and in the process we use most of the science forms in our day to day lives.

During primitive stages of evolution, the amount of knowledge humans possessed was miniscule when compared to today’s world. When humans were thriving to invent new techniques to make life a bit easier, our knowledge base was very less. No one knows for sure, but it might not be completely a wrong statement to say, they did not know ANYTHING during initial stages. Then they saw that they could eat things to keep them from hunger. Later they knew what to eat and what not to eat and the quantities of consumption. Then, may be some day they learnt that, well lets put it this way, ‘not all animals can be hunted very easily’ because some might have claws, fangs, teeth, wings, etc.

Cultivation and farming probably was just an idea of one person. That specific individual goes on to change the fate of their nomadic group, region, territory, country and now the whole world produces millions of tons of various types of foods in farms. It can be said that, that one individual created a scientific revolution to speed up evolution.

To put it interestingly, each and every thing that a person, a group, a community or a country invent or discover goes into a big box called Knowledge. Once, this knowledge is processed, sophisticated and it’s accuracy and usefulness is proved, then it is transfered to another box called Science. The advantage that mankind has once something is moved into the second box called Scientific Knowledge is that it is available to everybody to learn, practice, teach and do whatever you want to with that Scientific knowledge.

For example: One person knowing that some snake’s fangs produces venom that once injected into a blood stream can cause severe injuries to heart/brain cells and cause deaths was knowledge that one person or group had. But once that was propogated and more people learnt about it, it becomes scienctific Knowledge. Now whoever learns this scientific knowledge decides what he wants to do with the knowledge he just acquired. A person can indulge his resources in making poison or he can apply the same knowledge for making vaccines from the venom. It is at your disposal as to how and when you use the knowledge you gain. More people contributing to science in a positive direction would drive the civilization forward in a positive direction.

We will make an effort to explain most of the subsets of science like computer science, forensic science, physical science, social science, earth science, environmental science, life science, rocket science, natural science, applied science, biological science, cognitive science, material science, chemistry and few more in detail posts, each in a devoted post. Though, some of these are inter linked, it will be a good read to learn what each of these are and what they specialize in.

Please feel free to add anything you would like to contribute to this article as comments. Also, feel free to link us to any of your science related sites! We would appreciate if you can help us take the site to the next level by talking about explainstuff.com in digg or delicious or facebook or linkedin !

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Check the Latest Posts and Archives if you like our posts.