Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is an enterprise that builds and

organizesknowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the natural world.[1][2][3]
[4]
According to Aristotle, science is also the resulting body of reliable knowledge that can be logically and
convincingly explained (see "History and etymology" section below).[5]

Since classical antiquity science as a type of knowledge was closely linked to philosophy, the way of life
dedicated to discovering such knowledge. And into early modern times the two words were sometimes
used interchangeably in the English language. By the 17th century,[6] "natural philosophy" (which is today
called "natural science") could be considered separately from "philosophy" in general.[7] But "science"
continued to also be used in a broad sense denoting reliable knowledge about a topic, in the same way it
is still used in modern terms such as library science, political science, and computer science.

The more narrow sense of "science" which is common today, developed as a part of science became a
distinct enterprise of defining "laws of nature", based on early examples such as Kepler's laws, Galileo's
laws, and Newton's laws of motion. In this period it became more common to refer to natural philosophy
as "natural science". Over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" became increasingly
strongly associated with the disciplined study of the natural world, for example physics and chemistry.
Many of the other areas of scientific study outside the natural sciences have sometimes been classified
as social sciences.[8]

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Basic classifications

• 2 History and etymology

• 3 Scientific method

o 3.1 Basic and applied research

o 3.2 Experimentation and

hypothesizing

o 3.3 Certainty and science

• 4 Mathematics

• 5 Scientific community

o 5.1 Fields

o 5.2 Institutions

o 5.3 Literature

• 6 Philosophy of science

• 7 Science policy
 • 8 Pseudoscience, fringe science, and junk

science

• 9 Critiques

o 9.1 Philosophical critiques

o 9.2 Media perspectives

o 9.3 Politics

• 10 See also

• 11 Notes

• 12 References

• 13 Further reading

• 14 External links

Basic classifications
Scientific fields are commonly divided into two major groups: natural sciences, which study natural
phenomena (including biological life), andsocial sciences, which study human behavior and societies.
These groupings are empirical sciences, which means the knowledge must be based on
observable phenomena and capable of being tested for its validity by other researchers working under the
same conditions.[2] There are also related disciplines that are grouped into interdisciplinary and applied
sciences, such as engineering and health science. Within these categories are specialized scientific fields
that can include elements of other scientific disciplines but often possess their own terminology and body
of expertise.[9]

Mathematics, which is classified as a formal science, has both similarities and differences with the natural
and social sciences. It is similar to empirical sciences in that it involves an objective, careful and
systematic study of an area of knowledge; it is different because of its method of verifying its knowledge,
using a priori rather than empirical methods.[2] Formal science, which also includes statistics and logic, is
vital to the empirical sciences. Major advances in formal science have often led to major advances in the
empirical sciences. The formal sciences are essential in the formation of hypotheses, theories, and laws,
[2]
both in discovering and describing how things work (natural sciences) and how people think and act
(social sciences).

History and etymology

While descriptions of disciplined empirical investigations of the natural world exist from times at least as
early as classical antiquity (for example, by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder), andscientific methods have
been employed since the Middle Ages (for example, by Alhazen andRoger Bacon), the dawn of modern
science is generally traced back to the early modern period during what is known as the Scientific
Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. This period was marked by a new way of studying the natural
world, by methodical experimentation aimed at defining "laws of nature" while avoiding concerns with
metaphysical concerns such as Aristotle's theory of causation.[10][11]

This modern science developed from an older and broader enterprise. The word "science" is from Old
French, and in turn from Latin scientia which was one of several words for "knowledge" in that language.
[12][13]
In philosophical contexts, scientia and "science" were used to translate the Greek word epistemē,
which had acquired a specific definition in Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle, as a type of reliable
knowledge which is built up logically from strong premises, and can be communicated and taught.
Aristotle's influential emphasis was upon the "theoretical" step of deducinguniversal rules from raw data,
and did not treat the gathering of experience and raw data as part of science itself.[14]

From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, science or scientia continued to be used in this broad sense,
which was still common until thetwentieth century.[15] "Science" therefore had the same sort of very broad
meaning that philosophy had at that time. In other Latin influenced languages,
including French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, the word corresponding to science also carried this
meaning.

Prior to the 18th century, the preferred term for the study of nature among English speakers was "natural
philosophy", while other philosophical disciplines
(e.g., logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics) were typically referred to as "moral
philosophy". (Today, "moral philosophy" is more-or-less synonymous with "ethics".) Science only became
more strongly associated with natural philosophy than other sciences gradually with the strong promotion
of the importance of experimental scientific method, by people such asFrancis Bacon. With Bacon, begins
a more widespread and open criticism of Aristotle's influence which had emphasized theorizing and did
not treat raw data collection as part of science itself. An opposed position became common: that what is
critical to science at its best is methodical collecting of clear and useful raw data, something which is
easier to do in some fields than others.

The word "science" in English was still however used in the 17th century to refer to
the Aristotelian concept of knowledge which was secure enough to be used as a prescription for exactly
how to accomplish a specific task. With respect to the transitional usage of the term "natural philosophy"
in this period, the philosopher John Locke wrote disparagingly in 1690 that "natural philosophy is not
capable of being made a science".[16]

Locke's assertion notwithstanding, by the early 19th century natural philosophy had begun to separate
from philosophy, though it often retained a very broad meaning. In many cases, science continued to
stand for reliable knowledge about any topic, in the same way it is still used today in the broad sense (see
the introduction to this article) in modern terms such as library science, political science, and computer
science. In the more narrow sense of science, as natural philosophy became linked to an expanding set
of well-defined laws (beginning withGalileo's laws, Kepler's laws, and Newton's laws for motion), it
became more popular to refer to natural philosophy as natural science. Over the course of the 19th
century, moreover, there was an increased tendency to associate science with study of the natural world
(that is, the non-human world). This move sometimes left the study of human thought and society (what
would come to be called social science) in a linguistic limbo by the end of the century and into the next.[17]

Through the 19th century, many English speakers were increasingly differentiating science (i.e., the
natural sciences) from all other forms of knowledge in a variety of ways. The now-familiar expression
“scientific method,” which refers to the prescriptive part of how to make discoveries in natural philosophy,
was almost unused until then, but became widespread after the 1870s, though there was rarely total
agreement about just what it entailed.[17] The word "scientist," meant to refer to a systematically working
natural philosopher, (as opposed to an intuitive or empirically minded one) was coined in 1833 by William
Whewell.[18] Discussion of scientists as a special group of people who did science, even if their attributes
were up for debate, grew in the last half of the 19th century.[17] Whatever people actually meant by these
terms at first, they ultimately depicted science, in the narrow sense of the habitual use of the scientific
method and the knowledge derived from it, as something deeply distinguished from all other realms of
human endeavor.

By the 20th century, the modern notion of science as a special kind of knowledge about the world,
practiced by a distinct group and pursued through a unique method, was essentially in place. It was used
to give legitimacy to a variety of fields through such titles as "scientific" medicine, engineering,
advertising, or motherhood.[17] Over the 20th century, links between science and technology also grew
increasingly strong. As Martin Rees explains, progress in scientific understanding and technology have
been synergistic and vital to one another.[19]

Richard Feynman described science in the following way for his students: "The principle of science, the
definition, almost, is the following:The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of
scientific 'truth'. But what is the source of knowledge? Where do the laws that are to be tested come
from? Experiment, itself, helps to produce these laws, in the sense that it gives us hints. But also needed
is imagination to create from these hints the great generalizations — to guess at the wonderful, simple,
but very strange patterns beneath them all, and then to experiment to check again whether we have
made the right guess." Feynman also observed, "...there is an expanding frontier of ignorance...things
must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected."[20]