Science


Some modern examples of science: thermodynamics, electromagnetics, relativity, quantum mechanics, particle physics, high energy physics, chemistry, and the humanities.

Some modern examples of science: thermodynamics, electromagnetics, relativity, quantum mechanics, particle physics, high energy physics, chemistry, and the humanities.

In terminology, science, from the Latin scientia ‘knowledge’, refers to any systematic field of study or body of knowledge that aims, through experiment, observation, and deduction, to produce reliable explanations of phenomena, with reference to the material and physical world. [1]

History
In 322BC, Aristotle, via his collected works, according to Howard W. Odum (1926), was said to have founded science: [4]

“Aristotle was said to have ‘founded science’ and the scientific method in his deductive logic which he set forth for the purpose of technical procedure in the discovery and formulation of new truths.”

This may be a stretch; nevertheless, however, in the realm of truth. Then, according to Odum, Francis Bacon inaugurated the scientific method when he introduced the inductive method as the general method of science.

In circa 1300, the term “science” began to be used to refer to “knowledge (of something) acquired by study”, from the Old French (9th-4th century), from Latin scientia "knowledge," from sciens (genitive scientis), present participle of scire "to know," probably originally "to separate one thing from another, to distinguish," related to scindere "to cut, divide," from PIE root *skei- (cf. Greek skhizein "to split, rend, cleave," Gothic skaidan, Old English sceadan "to divide, separate." [2]

Modern science, in an approximate sense, can be considered to have begun in 1543 with the simultaneous publications of On the Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies by Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and On the Structure of the Human Body by Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius. [3]

Moral world | Material world
In 1833, in the aftermath of the Whewell-Coleridge debate, the term “scientist” was coined by English mathematical philosopher William Whewell, meaning one who studies the “material world”, to distinguish between the older variant of a “natural philosopher”, referring to one who studies all of nature, both the “material world” and the “moral world” generally speaking.

Quotes
The following are related quotes:

“No human investigation can be called real science if it cannot be demonstrated mathematically.”
— Leonardo da Vinci (c.1490), Italian polymath

“Science is exact to the degree that its generalizations agree with external realities.”
— Morris Zucker (1945), Philosophy of American History: the Historical Field Theory [4]

See also
● Fringe science
● Hard science
● Hmolscience
● Pseudoscience
● Science as religion
● Soft science

Reference
1. Clark, John O. E. (2004). The Essential Dictionary of Science. New York: Barnes & Noble Books.
2. Science – Online Etymology Dictionary.
3. Gribbon, John. (2002). Science: a History: 1543-2001. New York: BCA.
4. Zucker, Morris. (1945). The Philosophy of American History: The Historical Field Theory (pg. 51). Arnold-Howard Publishing Co.
5. Odum, Howard W. and Jocher, Katharine C. (1929). An Introduction to Social Research (pg. 25). H. Holt and Co.

External links
● Science – Wikipedia.

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