Hence, scientists concentrate on getting accurate data. Such evidence is obtained by observations and measurements taken in situations that range from natural settings such as a forest to completely contrived ones such as the laboratory. To make their observations, scientists use their own senses, instruments such as microscopes that enhance those senses, and instruments that tap characteristics quite different from what humans can sense such as magnetic fields.
Scientists observe passively earthquakes, bird migrations , make collections rocks, shells , and actively probe the world as by boring into the earth's crust or administering experimental medicines. In some circumstances, scientists can control conditions deliberately and precisely to obtain their evidence. They may, for example, control the temperature, change the concentration of chemicals, or choose which organisms mate with which others. By varying just one condition at a time, they can hope to identify its exclusive effects on what happens, uncomplicated by changes in other conditions.
Often, however, control of conditions may be impractical as in studying stars , or unethical as in studying people , or likely to distort the natural phenomena as in studying wild animals in captivity. In such cases, observations have to be made over a sufficiently wide range of naturally occurring conditions to infer what the influence of various factors might be. Because of this reliance on evidence, great value is placed on the development of better instruments and techniques of observation, and the findings of any one investigator or group are usually checked by others.
But they tend to agree about the principles of logical reasoning that connect evidence and assumptions with conclusions. Scientists do not work only with data and well-developed theories.
Often, they have only tentative hypotheses about the way things may be. Such hypotheses are widely used in science for choosing what data to pay attention to and what additional data to seek, and for guiding the interpretation of data.
In fact, the process of formulating and testing hypotheses is one of the core activities of scientists. To be useful, a hypothesis should suggest what evidence would support it and what evidence would refute it.
A hypothesis that cannot in principle be put to the test of evidence may be interesting, but it is not likely to be scientifically useful. The use of logic and the close examination of evidence are necessary but not usually sufficient for the advancement of science.
Scientific concepts do not emerge automatically from data or from any amount of analysis alone. Inventing hypotheses or theories to imagine how the world works and then figuring out how they can be put to the test of reality is as creative as writing poetry, composing music, or designing skyscrapers.
Sometimes discoveries in science are made unexpectedly, even by accident. But knowledge and creative insight are usually required to recognize the meaning of the unexpected. Aspects of data that have been ignored by one scientist may lead to new discoveries by another.
Scientists strive to make sense of observations of phenomena by constructing explanations for them that use, or are consistent with, currently accepted scientific principles. The credibility of scientific theories often comes from their ability to show relationships among phenomena that previously seemed unrelated. The theory of moving continents, for example, has grown in credibility as it has shown relationships among such diverse phenomena as earthquakes, volcanoes, the match between types of fossils on different continents, the shapes of continents, and the contours of the ocean floors.
The essence of science is validation by observation. But it is not enough for scientific theories to fit only the observations that are already known. Theories should also fit additional observations that were not used in formulating the theories in the first place; that is, theories should have predictive power. Demonstrating the predictive power of a theory does not necessarily require the prediction of events in the future.
The predictions may be about evidence from the past that has not yet been found or studied. A theory about the origins of human beings, for example, can be tested by new discoveries of human-like fossil remains. This approach is clearly necessary for reconstructing the events in the history of the earth or of the life forms on it. It is also necessary for the study of processes that usually occur very slowly, such as the building of mountains or the aging of stars. Stars, for example, evolve more slowly than we can usually observe.
Theories of the evolution of stars, however, may predict unsuspected relationships between features of starlight that can then be sought in existing collections of data about stars. When faced with a claim that something is true, scientists respond by asking what evidence supports it. But scientific evidence can be biased in how the data are interpreted, in the recording or reporting of the data, or even in the choice of what data to consider in the first place.
Scientists' nationality, sex, ethnic origin, age, political convictions, and so on may incline them to look for or emphasize one or another kind of evidence or interpretation.
Not until female scientists entered the field was the importance of female primates' community-building behavior recognized. Bias attributable to the investigator, the sample, the method, or the instrument may not be completely avoidable in every instance, but scientists want to know the possible sources of bias and how bias is likely to influence evidence.
Scientists want, and are expected, to be as alert to possible bias in their own work as in that of other scientists, although such objectivity is not always achieved. One safeguard against undetected bias in an area of study is to have many different investigators or groups of investigators working in it.
It is appropriate in science, as elsewhere, to turn to knowledgeable sources of information and opinion, usually people who specialize in relevant disciplines. But esteemed authorities have been wrong many times in the history of science. In the long run, no scientist, however famous or highly placed, is empowered to decide for other scientists what is true, for none are believed by other scientists to have special access to the truth. There are no preestablished conclusions that scientists must reach on the basis of their investigations.
In the short run, new ideas that do not mesh well with mainstream ideas may encounter vigorous criticism, and scientists investigating such ideas may have difficulty obtaining support for their research. Indeed, challenges to new ideas are the legitimate business of science in building valid knowledge. Even the most prestigious scientists have occasionally refused to accept new theories despite there being enough accumulated evidence to convince others.
In the long run, however, theories are judged by their results: When someone comes up with a new or improved version that explains more phenomena or answers more important questions than the previous version, the new one eventually takes its place.
Science as an enterprise has individual, social, and institutional dimensions. Scientific activity is one of the main features of the contemporary world and, perhaps more than any other, distinguishes our times from earlier centuries. Scientific work involves many individuals doing many different kinds of work and goes on to some degree in all nations of the world.
Men and women of all ethnic and national backgrounds participate in science and its applications. As a social activity, science inevitably reflects social values and viewpoints. Before the twentieth century, and well into it, women and people of color were essentially excluded from most of science by restrictions on their education and employment opportunities; the remarkable few who overcame those obstacles were even then likely to have their work belittled by the science establishment.
The direction of scientific research is affected by informal influences within the culture of science itself, such as prevailing opinion on what questions are most interesting or what methods of investigation are most likely to be fruitful. Elaborate processes involving scientists themselves have been developed to decide which research proposals receive funding, and committees of scientists regularly review progress in various disciplines to recommend general priorities for funding.
Science goes on in many different settings. Scientists are employed by universities, hospitals, business and industry, government, independent research organizations, and scientific associations. They may work alone, in small groups, or as members of large research teams. Their places of work include classrooms, offices, laboratories, and natural field settings from space to the bottom of the sea. Because of the social nature of science, the dissemination of scientific information is crucial to its progress.
Some scientists present their findings and theories in papers that are delivered at meetings or published in scientific journals. Those papers enable scientists to inform others about their work, to expose their ideas to criticism by other scientists, and, of course, to stay abreast of scientific developments around the world.
The advancement of information science knowledge of the nature of information and its manipulation and the development of information technologies especially computer systems affect all sciences.
Those technologies speed up data collection, compilation, and analysis; make new kinds of analysis practical; and shorten the time between discovery and application. Organizationally, science can be thought of as the collection of all of the different scientific fields, or content disciplines.
From anthropology through zoology, there are dozens of such disciplines. They differ from one another in many ways, including history, phenomena studied, techniques and language used, and kinds of outcomes desired.
With respect to purpose and philosophy, however, all are equally scientific and together make up the same scientific endeavor. The advantage of having disciplines is that they provide a conceptual structure for organizing research and research findings.
The disadvantage is that their divisions do not necessarily match the way the world works, and they can make communication difficult. In any case, scientific disciplines do not have fixed borders. Physics shades into chemistry, astronomy, and geology, as does chemistry into biology and psychology, and so on.
New scientific disciplines astrophysics and sociobiology, for instance are continually being formed at the boundaries of others. Some disciplines grow and break into subdisciplines, which then become disciplines in their own right. Universities, industry, and government are also part of the structure of the scientific endeavor.
University research usually emphasizes knowledge for its own sake, although much of it is also directed toward practical problems.
Universities, of course, are also particularly committed to educating successive generations of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. As such, it wastes precious resources, both intellectual and financial, that could otherwise be used for real scientific progress.
This is a powerful argument, and it is widely believed. But almost everything about it is wrong. Every lab book is a record of particular events, and before the ink is dry every event thus reported is thoroughly and irretrievably in the past. Every experiment and every measurement is a particular event. And by the time we can use them they are in the past. A science without these past particulars is no science at all; it is nothing more than speculative metaphysics or dogmatic mythmaking.
The involvement of science and scientists with history does not end there. Often its self-conception is that real science invents new ideas but history is wholly derivative, rehashing old worn-out ideas. Yet the same scientists want to claim that their latest views represent progress.
To claim progress requires a comparison of present theories with those of the past; it requires a description and interpretation of those past theories. Indeed, making a case for your own views frequently requires getting the audience to see the alternatives in a certain way so that your view is the natural next step forward.
This is the function of the literature review and above all the review article. This is interpretive and paradigmatically historical work. Yes, it is about the past. But those who control the review articles control the present and future as well.
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