A Guide to Understanding Science
Science is an organized systematic enterprise that builds and unifies knowledge in the form of predictions and testable explanation about the natural world. The main purpose of science is to publish results of research and experiment as well as collecting data and observations which can be used for further scientific investigation. In short, science is concerned with the application of knowledge to solve problems and make new discoveries. There has been some violent debate between religion and science. On the one hand, science professes to demonstrate the existence of God and on the other hand, religion maintains that man is not worthy of a place in the creator’s good book.
The debate continues despite the fact that there are some basic similarities between religion and science. In fact, many have said that it is religion which has forced the scientific method on to the surface. It was religion that started the long discussion about what science is. The debate is still going on. There are certain fundamental definitions for science, which will help us to demystify the whole issue.
We have some three fundamental concepts for a demystification of science. Fundamental concepts are used in order to derive science from its natural or physical roots. Physical sciences are those that are intimately associated with the physical world. The theories of science in this case are derived by making use of the physical world. The other two fundamental concepts of science are rationalism and fideism.
Reliability of scientific information is one of the fundamental concepts. If a theory is not consistent with the evidence, then it can be rejected as worthless. Reliability refers to the agreement of the facts with the scientific method of measurement. There are three groups of measurements. All these measurements have a systematic relationship with each other. This systematic relationship is called the Law of Conservation of Energy (LCE) or the Law of conservation of momentum (LTP).
Another way to demystify science is by making the assumption that knowledge gained from one scientific method is automatically applicable to all the sciences. For example, if you are studying the relationship between temperature and barometric pressure, then it follows that changes in temperature will also have corresponding changes in barometric pressure. Therefore, we say that the knowledge acquired from one science is universal. This may sound good in theory, but in practice it leads to serious problems. For example, in chemistry, it was very common for one hypothesis to be accepted while a different hypothesis was disregarded.
It has been found that knowledge gained by making use of systematic study is practically irrelevant. The other group of sciences, which are empirical in nature, do not have a problem with this. Empirical studies can be used as references for establishing whether general laws are universally applicable. General laws like the Law of Gravity, conservation of energy and momentum, and the Law of Conservation of Mass, are universally accepted since they have been experimentally confirmed.