First, and most fundamentally, we might ask: what is science, and what are its
characteristics? The word ‘science’ is variously used in ordinary discourse in English
to refer to a product (a body of knowledge), to a process (a way of conducting
enquiry) and to an enterprise (the institutionalised pursuit of knowledge of the
material world1). The distinctive characteristic of scientific knowledge is that it
provides material explanations for the behaviour of the material world, that is,
explanations in terms of the entities that make up that world and their properties.
Through its choice of questions to address and the kinds of answers to accept, its
methods of enquiry, and its procedures for testing and scrutinising knowledge claims,
the scientific community has succeeded in building up a body of knowledge which is
consensually accepted by that community and often also beyond it. Whilst this is
always open to revision, its core elements are stable and beyond reasonable doubt.
We value science (as a product, as an enquiry process, and as a social institution)
because of its success in explaining phenomena in elegant and parsimonious ways,
which are intellectually satisfying and which often facilitate the purposeful
manipulation of objects, materials and events
First, and most fundamentally, we might ask: what is science, and what are its
characteristics? The word ‘science’ is variously used in ordinary discourse in English
to refer to a product (a body of knowledge), to a process (a way of conducting
enquiry) and to an enterprise (the institutionalised pursuit of knowledge of the
material world1). The distinctive characteristic of scientific knowledge is that it
provides material explanations for the behaviour of the material world, that is,
explanations in terms of the entities that make up that world and their properties.
Through its choice of questions to address and the kinds of answers to accept, its
methods of enquiry, and its procedures for testing and scrutinising knowledge claims,
the scientific community has succeeded in building up a body of knowledge which is
consensually accepted by that community and often also beyond it. Whilst this is
always open to revision, its core elements are stable and beyond reasonable doubt.
We value science (as a product, as an enquiry process, and as a social institution)
because of its success in explaining phenomena in elegant and parsimonious ways,
which are intellectually satisfying and which often facilitate the purposeful
manipulation of objects, materials and events
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