The 15 Most Important Features of Science

Some Characteristics of science The most important are to transcend the facts, the objective analysis, the possibility to verify the experiments, the specialization or the practical utility.

The word"science"comes from the Latin" Scientia "Which means knowledge. It is called science to the set of knowledge that is obtained thanks to the observation, reasoning and methodological experimentation of facts.

Characteristics of science

These practices generate questions that then construct hypotheses that, if verified or not, become principles, laws and schemes to generalize results.

Science is the result of man's curiosity to know more about his environment. It exerts its curiosity to be an observer, collector and identifier of the reality that surrounds it, describing its characteristics, giving them names and discovering their interactions.

The exercise of curiosity produces knowledge and, therefore, reasoning and rational arguments.

Science is not infallible or static. On the contrary, it is susceptible of being in permanent revision of the facts, of the discovery of new facts and of new conditions that can modify the results.

A notorious example of the dynamism of science is that, if it were not, even today we would continue to assume that the earth is flat and that it is the center of the universe.

Mario Bunge, Argentine physicist, mathematician, philosopher and humanist, defined science by dividing it into two major areas: formal sciences and factual sciences, the latter being those that use observation and experimentation in their methodology and serve to verify hypotheses that, according to The author, are usually provisional.

15 Main Characteristics of the Science

According to this conception, then a series of characteristics can be attributed to science, which we listed below.

1- It is factual

Part of the facts and always returns to the facts. The scientist must respect them and distort them as little as possible with his intervention, without forgetting that the facts themselves are changing and may undergo modifications that should be contemplated by the researcher.

2- Transactions to the facts

It goes beyond facts as such, since through its analysis, it can accept them but also discard them and use new ones that more fully explain the object of study.

The scientific fact does not arise from mere observation; The researcher's decision to select the facts he considers important, to discard those that do not, and to propose hypotheses and theories that shed light on the subject under investigation is also involved.

3- Is analytical

Scientific research tackles problems one by one and tries to fragment them, dividing them into small parts that facilitate the particular study of each one separately.

As you manage to explain each segment, you are interconnecting them and also explaining and recomposing little by little the whole. Science studies partial problems to achieve general results.

4- Is specialized

With the passage of time and the expansion of knowledge, scientific research increasingly covers more specific aspects that can be studied.

This has led to the interdisciplinarity of research, where many areas of study complement each other and contribute their knowledge.

Regardless of which disciplines are involved in the research, and even if their degrees of development or complexity are different, or they manage different techniques, the scientific method will rigorously apply to all to achieve the objectives pursued.

5- Is clear and precise

The science is based on rigorous studies that do not allow assumptions, opinions or understandings.

In scientific research, the recording of data or phenomena must be performed accurately and the statements must be clear, as well as their results, without forgetting that they can always be fallible.

But it should not leave room for doubts, ambiguities or misinterpretations. That is one of the main qualities of science, its clarity, its univocal goal.

6- Is communicable

It is a fact that the intention and reason of being of the science is to be able to communicate its principles and discoveries with the objective of making advances and changes in its field of study.

The objective of an investigation is to be able to communicate and share its findings, although it usually does so in a specialized language that can only be understood by those who are qualified for it.

7- It is verifiable

This characteristic differentiates the scientific study of philosophical thought or any other type of study.

All research (understood as observation, experimentation, etcetera) that yields a result for the first time, must be done many times more to corroborate its results.

Only then, the facts can be taken as scientific truths, which in the long run will become theories, principles and laws.

This is what is known as objective knowledge, which analyzes and verifies the facts through observation and experimentation.

8- It is methodical

Any research that seeks to obtain serious and verifiable results, requires the elaboration and thorough follow-up of a rigorous and planned scientific methodology.

This method includes the previous planning of each step to give to achieve the result posed in the previous hypothesis.

In this planning, the researcher uses techniques that he constantly improves and may even intentionally resort to elements and random factors to see whether or not there are changes in the results.

But even these resources of chance must be previously thought out. The seriousness in the application of the methodology is what guarantees the veracity of the results.

9- It is explanatory

He tries to explain the facts in terms of laws and principles; That is, through proven and irrefutable premises.

Every scientist asks questions to answer: what happens?, how does it happen? Why does it happen that way? It also attempts to inquire whether or not it may occur otherwise and why such modifications may (or may not) occur.

The answer to these questions is what allows scientific knowledge to be generalized, diffused and adopted as truth.

10- It is predictive

Science not only studies facts of the present, but thanks to them can imagine or deduce how they were in the past and can also predict how they will be in the future, after the analysis of behavior and events over time.

This feature of science is particularly visible and very useful, for example, in astronomy, where aspects can be predicted more or less correctly, such as the weather (rain, snowfall, drought), eclipses, solar movements, phenomena Natural, etc., linking current observation with the study of historical patterns.

The prediction is always subject to be adjusted and perfected, which also perfects the theoretical knowledge.

11- It is open

No prior limitations are set. No field of study is forbidden to science and avails itself of any resource or knowledge that may aid in the advancement of research.

Science can not be conceived in watertight compartments nor as monolithic truths; On the contrary a good scientist distrusts, refutes, errs and learns constantly.

12- It is useful

Precisely because of the rigor and objectivity of its methods, science is useful and reliable for other scholars and for the ultimate attainment of truths and results applicable in daily life.

Such is the case of technology that, according to Bunge, is nothing more than applied science.

13- It is systematic

Scientific knowledge is not a cluster of isolated and disconnected ideas or studies, but an interconnected system that follows rigorous patterns of analysis and experimental protocols that can not be ignored, altered or modified in any of its stages.

14- It is general

Science seeks, through its analysis and experimentation, to take the results and generalize them to larger cases, groups or areas of study.

The result of a study carried out in a certain way and under certain conditions, can be extrapolated to other areas, provided that it has the same or similar conditions as the original case. This is what allows universally applicable general laws to be produced.

15- It's legal

Scientific knowledge has as one of its functions the search for laws and the application of them. These laws are under constant observation and refinement.

Other features of Science

Beyond the classification made by Mario Bunge, it can be said that science is also Concrete , Because it studies specific problems, and it does not go by the branches; On the contrary, it increasingly focuses its object of study. Ambiguity has no place in the scientific method.

Science in turn is Empirical ; This means that it is based on experimentation, on the verification of the theory to be able to accept as certain the theoretical statements initially raised.

There are many other characteristics of scientific knowledge: it is Controllable, logically consistent, testable, critical, substantiated and provisional . Many other authors also agree with much of the Mario Bunge classification.

References

  1. Mario Bunge (1996). The science. His method and his philosophy. Editions Siglo XX.
  2. Ricardo Guibourg (1986). Introduction to scientific knowledge. Editions Eudeba.
  3. Esther Díaz (1992). Towards a critical view of science. Editions Byblos. Page 117-118
  4. Mariano Davis. The science, characteristics and classifications. Recovered from monografias.com
  5. Science according to Bunge: from the formal sciences to the factual sciences. Clues to solve the puzzle of science. Retrieved from curiouswindows.weebly.com
  6. Gervais Mbarga and Jean-Marc Fleury. What is science? Online course in scientific journalism. Lesson 5. Retrieved from wfsj.org.


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