Science:

• Is NOT simply a body of knowledge
• Is a way of understanding the physical universe
• Uses the method of testing hypotheses
  • Observations of natural phenomena lead to possible explanations (hypotheses)
  • These hypotheses must be falsifiable (i.e., there must be some test, experiment, or observation which can demonstrate that the hypothesis is untrue)
  • Until the hypothesis is tested, it is only considered a speculation
  • If the hypothesis survives a test (or tests) of falsification, it is tentatively (or provisionally) accepted (keeping in mind that additional tests might potentially overturn the hypothesis)
• Proceeds by publication of ideas
  • Allows others to check the original scientist's observations
  • Allows others (including later generations) to independently test the hypotheses
  • Allows ideas to be widely transmitted

Science is somewhat hard to define. Here is a typical definition: The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Sounds good, but perhaps a bit vague.

Nature is a little easier. Here's Charles Darwin's definition (from the Introduction to The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication): "...I mean by nature only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and laws only the ascertained sequence of events."

Given that, science might be considered the process of the description of nature and the discovery of natural laws.

Natural History is typical thought of as that subset of sciences dealing with supramolecular phenomena (i.e., those that deal with object built from molecules on upwards, rather than the realm of molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles). However, all those smaller scale structures do impact directly on the larger world. There is another way of looking at Natural History, though:

That subset of sciences that deal with phenomena that are strongly contingent; that is, are strongly affected by events that occurred earlier in time.

Some attributes of Science:

• Is best described and distinguished from other fields of human endeavor by its methodology (which we will explore over the next few weeks)
• Is organized by its content disciplines (subject matter), rather than by other potential organizing principles
  • That is, despite occasional comments to the contrary, it is more appropriate to talk about herpetology (the study of amphibians and non-avian reptiles) or sedimentology (the study of sedimentary rocks) or high-energy particle physics than to talk about "Western science" or "German science vs. American science" or "print science vs. platform-presented science."
  • In other disciplines, though, content (subject matter) is generally NOT the primary organizing principle. Think of the arts, where it might be more appropriate to talk about the medium (paint vs. sculpture), or the provenance (Chinese art vs. British art)
• Is evidence based (backed up by independent observations of nature)
• Consequently, can only deal with issues that have some direct manifestation in the natural world
• Examples:
  • Cannot directly address issues of matters outside the natural world (i.e., whether or not a god or gods exist; whether a particular political or philosophical position is "better" in a non-tangible way, etc.)
  • But DOES directly address matters that have manifestations in the natural world, regardless of the (personal, philosophical, religious, or other) position held by people
  • Therefore, Science CAN (and does) reject statements such as "the world is only 6000 years old" or "anatomical and genetic complexity cannot be explained without resorting to intelligent design" or "burning fossil fuels has no effect on global climates" or "solar power can provide the same amount of energy that fossil fuels do today", even if people have strongly felt personal reasons for accepting these ideas
• Not all viewpoints are equally valid in Science
  • That is, a viewpoint is only considered valid when measured against the natural world, and not by any other metric (seniority of proposer; how well it matches a personal, political, religious, or other belief, etc.)
  • Therefore, "compromise" positions between different viewpoints are no more likely to be valid than "extreme" positions. Support for a position is ascertained against the natural world.
• Concepts within science are subject to change with new discoveries

Through Science, we have discovered many aspects of nature. Here are some of the largest level aspects (finer details would be those covered by different content disciplines):

• Nature is understandable; we can achieve an effective understanding of nature through the application of reason and critical thinking
• Natural phenomena tend to follow regular patterns expressible in mathematics (i.e., "laws" in the sense of many physics problems), although these patterns often become increasingly difficult to phrase mathematically for more complex phenomena
• Nature is mechanistic (i.e., it follows regular laws and patterns), but not deterministic (because many phenomena are stochastic and probabilistic, and therefore cannot be predicted in advance)
• In Nature, not all things are possible
• Also, not all possible things happen (e.g., a coin could land "heads" or "tails", but will only do one of those two possible results when actually flipped)
• Consequently, many things in nature only make sense when you understand both the processes that generate the patterns, AND the patterns themselves

Supplementary Reading:

• Sereno. P.C. 1999. The evolution of dinosaurs. Science 284:2137-2147.

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Last modified: 12 January 2007