He Process of building science , From a positivist approach, begins with the identification of a problem, the need to know the reason for a phenomenon or the causes of a behavior change.
Through observation with the naked eye or with the help of instruments the problem is described. Once delimited the subject that is wanted to investigate are discarded aspects that have nothing to do with it.
Secondly, aspects relating to the problem are collected and obtained through observation, previous research or small experiments.
The data collected are organized and thus we obtain information that in the form of a statement or mathematical relationship is formulated as a hypothesis. It is usually posed as an assumption or prognosis or tentative explanation of the problem.
Then comes the moment of experimentation, the problem is taken to the laboratory and solutions are tried until you find a fit. The problem is given repeatedly to draw conclusions.
Fifth, the test is performed, that is, evidence is proposed to respond to the problem clearly and accurately.
Finally, a theory or natural law is formulated. When a law is created from the process of construction of science, a constant and invariable norm of things is created.
Science in the antiquity
Only until ancient Greece did humanity dare to think that things did not come exclusively from the gods. The Greeks of ancient Jonia questioned the formation of matter.
Thales of Miletus , In the 600th century BCE, together with his disciples, surprised in his time to affirm that everything was formed by water.
Observing nature he thought that everything came from an enormous ocean and although of course this turned out to be false, he became the first man to question a magical process of appearance of things, man, facts and natural phenomena.
Anaximenes For his part was given the task of explaining the conditions of the air and Empedocles Was another Ionian more interested in showing that the world was composed of the four elements: water, air, fire and earth.
Ancient Greece thus saw a new way of approaching the world, with principles and norms, a new path to knowledge, which was called Science.
It was then established that the social order and its laws were only a tradition and not a deduction, it was a custom and not necessarily a truth.
Later, Socrates , Plato Y Aristotle Proposed the first methods of philosophical, mathematical, logical and technical reasoning.
The two paradigms in the construction of science
All routes to knowledge are in one of the great paradigms of science. On the one hand, there is the Scientific Method from a positivist approach, where reality is observable and measurable.
It is the paradigm of the hard sciences like physics or mathematics, for example and uses quantitative methods to describe the attributes of reality.
He scientific method Seeks absolute, generalizable and universal conclusions, such as the molecules that make up the water or the volume occupied by the air.
On the other hand, it is possible to reach knowledge under a hermeneutic or interpretive paradigm applied more to the soft sciences such as sociology wave psychology .
In this case it is considered that reality is subjective and therefore must be observed in another way.
The hermeneutic approach seeks to know aspects of reality and relates them to each other and to the whole, in a systemic, holistic or structural way. Under this paradigm, qualitative techniques are used to approach reality such as interviews, for example.
In a hermeneutic approach, science uses as a method the theory founded on collecting data, analyzing and concluding it to return to the field, to collect more data and in a cyclical process to build meaning.
Science and its principles
Science, from a positivist approach, responds to two objectives: one is to give solutions and answers to problems and the second is to describe phenomena to be able to control them.
As for the principles, it responds clearly to two: reproducibility and refutability.
The first refers to the possibility of repeating an experiment in any place and in any person; The second accepts that any law or theory can be refuted through a new scientific production.
Science, from a positivist view, is characterized by being based on reason with no space for speculation; Is accurate, empirical and systematic.
It uses a method to reach conclusions, is analytical and when it reaches conclusions is communicable and open.
Moreover, in an infinite progression, it is predictive; In this way it is possible to initiate a new scientific process on the acquired knowledge.
Science: a path to knowledge with a method
Once the paradigm of a world created by the gods was broken, the number of men moved by curiosity and the search for new paths towards knowledge multiplied.
When Galileo Galilei wanted to prove that the earth was not the center of the universe, without knowing it was giving life to the scientific method. He observed the phenomena that interested him and took notes in his notebook.
Later he analyzed them, applied them formulas and checked their own hypotheses. When the reality verified coincides with the hypothesis applied its discoveries to a new phenomenon, looking for to deduce behaviors that could be thus become laws.
In this journey of observations, experiments and attempts to demonstrate opinions, the Science now recognized as a set of techniques and procedures that using reliable instruments allows the demonstration of hypotheses.
Science uses a hypothetical deductive method, that is, it wants to demonstrate a hypothesis by probing from general matters to explaining the particular, returns to the general and thus continues infinitely in a cyclical process.
And although it is possible to think diverse scientific methods, one has been established since the Renaissance, with René Descartes, until our days.
References
- Castañeda-Sepúlveda R. Lo apeiron: classical grecian voice in contemporary science. Journal Faculty of Sciences. Volume 1, Number 2, p. 83-102, 2012.
- Gadamer H. (1983). Hermeneutics as practical philosophy. In F. G. Lawrence (Trans.), Reason in the age of science. (Pp. 88-110)
- Dwight H. Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences. Galileo Galilei. American Journal of Physics 34, 279 (1966)
- Herrera R. et al. (2010) The cientific method. Journal of the Faculty of Medicine; Vol. 47, no. 1 (1999); 44-48
- Meza, Luis (2003). The positivist paradigm and the dialectical conception of knowledge. Journal Digital Mathematics, 4 (2), p.1-5.