This is my attempt to provide pointers to help understand what “science” actually is in contrast to what it appears to be.
The definition of the term, “science” from the Oxford dictionary is “knowledge about the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world, based on facts that you can prove, for example by experiments”. So science is all about knowledge. What is the definition of knowledge? Knowledge is defined as “the information, understanding and skills that you gain through education or experience”. (Oxford)
Therefore we could combine these two definitions and say that “science” is defined as “the information, understanding and skills that you gain through education or experience about the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world, based on facts that you can prove, for example by experiments”
Using this information, we can list some of the properties of “science” as;
- Information
- Human understanding.
- Human skills.
- Gained from education.
- Gained from experience.
- Related to the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world.
- Based on facts that you can prove.
It’s clear from the above definition of “science” that it involves our personal experience of the “natural and physical world” and is based on “facts that you can prove”. Is this how you define “science”? I bet your definition does not involve the human element as it were! e.g this was not the definition of “science” I was taught at school during science classes.
So let’s carry on looking at other definitions of “science”. Wikipedia (as of 6/4/20) defines “science” as “Science (from the Latin word Scientia, meaning “knowledge”) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.” The definition of testable is “that can be tested”, so we can add an extra item to our list of the properties of science gained from our dictionary perusal as follows;
- Information
- Based on human understanding.
- Based on human skills.
- Gained from education.
- Gained from experience.
- Related to the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world (universe?)
- Based on facts that you can prove.
- Provides testable (e.g that can be tested”) explanations about the universe
- Provides testable (e.g that can be tested”) predictions about the universe
It’s quite clear from our definition of “science” that our mind and reason (e.g our human nature) will play a large part in how we do and understand “science”. So how do we understand the effects of our human nature on science? You won’t be surprised to know that this problem was considered by the ancient Greeks over 2500 years ago and they called such persons involved in this tasks, philosophers! This is confirmed by the Wikipedia (6/4/20) definition of philosophy which is, “Philosophy (from Greek φιλοσοφία, Philosophia, literally “love of wisdom”) is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved.”
Therefore by definition, to fully understand “science”, one needs to understand “science” from a philosophical perspective. And I bet you have guessed this already, that there is already a branch of philosophy dedicated to this task called the “Philosophy of science”!
While all of what we have discussed may seem obvious, there is a strong following among some “scientists” to disconnect “science” from any philosophical considerations. I believe the reason for this is that it is much easier to manipulate or misrepresent “science” if the persons involved do not fully understand the true nature of “science” as shown by the “Philosophy of science”.
I can recommend a good book that is a great primer for the subject of the “Philosophy of science”. It is called “What Is This Thing Called Science?” by Alan Chalmers. Wikipedia (6/2/20) describes it as “The book is a guide to the philosophy of science which outlines the shortcomings of naive empiricist accounts of science, and describes and assesses modern attempts to replace them. The book is written with minimal use of technical terms. What Is This Thing Called Science? was first published in 1976, and has been translated into many languages.”. This book is an absolute “game-changer” if you really want to understand what “science” actually is.
And we are in good company in this recommendation that one should understand philosophy if one is trying to understand science. The famous physicist Albert Einstein in a letter to Robert Thornton in 1944 is quoted as saying, “A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth”
If you are a real seeker of the truth about science, then you should follow Albert Einstein’s advice and gain knowledge of the “Philosophy of science”.