Science

Science is a way for humans to understand the world around them. However, instead of relying on supernatural or divine explanations as humans did for millennia, science uses logic, reason, and observation to gain knowledge. The United Kingdom-based Science Council has defined science as the “pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence.” Scientists attempt to gain this knowledge using the scientific method—establishing and testing parameters to determine the validity of a proposed hypothesis. The earliest foundations of science existed for thousands of years, but the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries planted the seeds of modern science.

Overview

Without written records, it is impossible to know the belief systems of prehistoric humans, but they likely viewed the world as a place inhabited by animal, ancestral, or nature spirits. Natural phenomena like wind, rain, and the migration of animals were likely attributed to spiritual forces. Science, as understood in the twenty-first century, would not have existed in prehistoric times, but ancient humans were curious and would have noticed certain patterns in the world around them. As hunters, they may have connected events such as annual migrations of their food supply to the appearance of specific star patterns in the night sky. They may also have noted that the time it takes for a child to be born coincides with the movement of specific stars or the number of full moons. Archeologists have found evidence that prehistoric humans monitored the skies, uncovering a constellation pattern on a piece of mammoth tusk dating back more than 32,000 years.

The first civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed an early scientific tradition, most notably in astronomy, medicine, and mathematics. The Mesopotamians made detailed maps of the heavens and predicted events like lunar eclipses from their observations. Egyptian astronomical observations resulted in the development of the twelve-month calendar, the evolution of which is still used. The Egyptians also developed an early form of geometry to build their renowned architecture and survey and design efficient farmland. The oldest-known medical texts date back to the ancient Egyptians, with papyrus scrolls describing the human brain and suggesting remedies for various ailments. However, these ancient cultures did not differentiate science from religion or divine magic. Astronomy was intricately tied to the pseudoscience of astrology and the true causes of illnesses were believed to be evil spirits or angry gods.

Greek Scientific Tradition

The earliest hints of modern science developed in ancient Greece in the first millennia BCE. The Greeks were the first to consider that the universe could be understood through natural, rather than supernatural, explanations. The philosopher Thales of Miletus, who lived about the seventh century BCE, introduced this concept to the ancient Greek world. He theorized that earthquakes were caused by the land moving about as it floated on a great sea of water. While his explanation was wrong, he was the first to suggest that something other than an angry god was responsible.

The most influential voice in the development of Greek science was the philosopher Aristotle, who lived from 384 to 322 BCE. Aristotle introduced the concepts of inquiry, logic, and demonstration into scientific thought. His impact was so profound that some modern scholars view him as the world’s first scientist—although that term would not be used until the nineteenth century. Aristotle referred to himself as a natural philosopher. His ideas led to a tradition of logic and deduction that shaped Greek scientific thought for centuries.

For example, the philosopher Anaximander suggested humans must have evolved from other animals based on the deduction that human babies cannot survive independently. Humans must have come from a species whose young develop faster. In the third century BCE, Eratosthenes arrived at a surprisingly accurate measurement of the Earth’s circumference by observing the length of noontime shadows at two locations. In the fourth century BCE, Democritus proposed that everything in the universe was made of tiny building blocks that he called atoms, from the Greek word atomos meaning “uncut” or “indivisible.”

However, even though Greek scientific tradition set the stage for the future evolution of science, it had one major flaw that ultimately hampered its success. Greek philosophers focused almost entirely on the process of logic and deductive thought to the exclusion of everything else. Merely using logic and thinking through a problem to find a solution was considered the proper way of reasoning an answer. Scientific observation and experimentation were often cast aside as unnecessary. Furthermore, Greek philosophical thought did not completely abandon divine influence. The world may be governed by natural law, but the universe was still controlled by a higher power, either the Greek gods or a divine force that Aristotle called the “prime mover.”

As a result, Greek logical thought was often tainted by fundamentally flawed absolutes. Although Aristarchus theorized in the third century BCE that the sun was at the center of the universe, most Greek philosophers held that Earth was at the center of everything. Earth was also thought of as an imperfect place, while the heavens were unchanging and perfect. These two “constants” helped undermine scientific advancements for centuries.

The Romans later adapted Greek scientific tradition, but much of this knowledge was lost with the fifth-century fall of the Western Roman Empire. During the medieval period, the traditions of Greek learning were kept alive in the Eastern Roman Empire and the Middle East. Chinese scientists also made great strides, developing revolutionary inventions like the compass, gunpowder, and paper.

Scientific Revolution

By the fourteenth century, medieval Europe was at a crossroads that led to a cultural rebirth known as the Renaissance. Increased trade with the East plus several centuries of fighting the wars of the Crusades brought new cultures to Europe. Scholars began to rediscover ancient Roman and Greek texts, which, combined with the invention of the movable-type printing press, brought this knowledge to many more people. In Italy, the popularity of a philosophical movement called humanism began growing. Humanism held that humans were responsible for their fate, shifting the focus from divine or supernatural causes. Finally, mid-century Europe was devastated by the deadly Black Death, a plague that wiped out tens of millions of people. With religious leaders unable to stop the disease from spreading, many people emerged from the ordeal questioning the power of the Catholic Church.

These elements combined to usher in the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rather than accept the Church’s longstanding worldview—a philosophy rooted in the infallibility of Church doctrine and the idea of an unchanging, perfect heaven—scholars of the period questioned the status quo using their observations to rethink the universe. They found that accepted “absolutes” of the past did not fit their calculations made through scientific observation. Some religious mysticism led to scientific discovery, as with seventeenth-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler. Kepler set out to discover the divine music he believed permeated the cosmos. Instead, he discovered three laws of planetary motion that predicted how celestial bodies move through space.

Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus used his observations of the heavens to determine the sun, not Earth, is at the center of the universe. Copernicus relegated Earth to just one of the planets, claiming it circled the sun rather than the universe centering around Earth. This idea opposed fundamental religious teachings of the time, prompting Copernicus to wait until shortly before his death in 1543 to publish his work for fear of retribution.

Scholars credit Italian astronomer and engineer Galileo Galilei as the father of modern science for his revolutionary work in astronomy, physics, and mathematics. Improving on existing designs, Galileo created a more powerful telescope that could detect the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and the moon’s craters and mountains. His discoveries lent credence to Copernicus’s sun-centered view of the universe and cast doubt on the idea of heavenly perfection. Galileo paid a price for his discoveries. The Church forced him to renounce his support for Copernicus, and he spent the last years of his life under house arrest before his death in 1642.

Another foundational figure of the Scientific Revolution was English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton who lived from 1642 to 1727. Newton may be best known for his law of gravity and three laws of motion—published in his revolutionary 1687 book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica—but he also did considerable work with light and optics, planetary movements, and mathematics. He is also credited as one of the inventors of calculus. Newton’s ideas were the foundation of modern physics, even inspiring the term Newtonian physics to describe his conclusions. His theories of gravity and space-time held sway until the early twentieth century when German physicist Albert Einstein again revolutionized science with his theories of relativity.

The Scientific Revolution’s focus on observation and experimentation over religious explanations changed the world, greatly advancing sciences such as astronomy and physics, and creating new sciences such as chemistry and biology. By the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the seeds it planted had led to the development of more advanced sciences, allowing humans to unlock the power inside atoms and identify and fight the microorganisms that cause disease.

Modern Science

Scientific advancements in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries increased exponentially. Astronomers discovered Earth’s place in the vast universe is very insignificant, and our planet is a speck in a small corner of one of the billions of galaxies. Scientists have seen the birth and death of massive stars and searched for answers to the universe’s beginning. In 2019 in the constellation Virtigo, scientists photographed the first image of a black hole. Engineers and scientists found ways to send humans into space and even land on the Moon. In 2021, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the first helicopter, Ingenuity, into space on the surface of Mars. Medical science has improved the quality and length of human lives. The Human Genome Project mapped human gene sequences, opening the door for new or improved cures and treatments for numerous diseases—like human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), leukemia, and diabetes—and developing life-saving vaccines in record time, like those for COVID-19. Scientists also explore the mysterious physics of quantum mechanics—the properties of matter at the smallest levels. These advancements influenced the future of scientific knowledge, just as the work of Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein laid the foundation for modern scientists.

Applications

The word science, which evolved from the Latin scientia meaning “knowledge,” emerged in the mid-fourteenth century. Before this period, the pursuit of science was called natural philosophy. All scientific fields use a basic principle of logic known as the scientific method. English philosopher Francis Bacon's book Novum Organum (1620) first categorized the scientific method. It intended to establish parameters for logic-based problem-solving across scientific fields.

The method consists of several basic steps. The first step is to make an observation that defines a purpose to be explored. For example, a scientist may want to investigate if freshwater or saltwater freezes faster. Step two is to create a hypothesis, or an educated prediction, of the outcome. In this case, the scientist may conclude that both samples will freeze simultaneously. Step three is to test the hypothesis and collect data concerning the outcome. The scientist would collect two equal water samples and add salt to one sample. The samples would be frozen and monitored together to see which froze more quickly. Step four is to analyze the data and form a conclusion. In this case, the scientist would find the saltwater took longer to freeze, indicating that salt slows the freezing process. Most scientists repeat the experiment to confirm the results or determine if another factor could be causing the observed result. When the scientist is satisfied that their conclusions are valid, the scientist moves to the last step and reports the research findings.

The scientific method can be used in all types of scientific fields. Generally, science can be divided into three major branches—formal, social, and natural sciences. Each branch can be further divided into specific scientific fields. Formal sciences rely on abstract concepts of formal systems, in which a theorem can be inferred from an axiom based upon an established set of rules. An axiom is a statement assumed to be true without definitive proof. For example, zero (0) is a natural number even though it represents nothing. A theorem is a definitive statement that can be established from axioms. Examples of formal sciences are mathematics, logic, statistics, computer science, and information technology. Social sciences study human societies and the relationships between individuals. Social sciences include archaeology, economics, history, psychology, and sociology.

The largest scientific field, natural sciences, is the study of the non-human natural world. It contains two branches. Physical sciences are the study of non-living systems. These include astronomy, geology, inorganic chemistry, meteorology, and physics. Life sciences study the living world, including anatomy, biology, ecology, genetics, organic chemistry, and zoology.

About the Author

Richard Sheposh graduated from Penn State University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and journalism. He spent twenty-three years working in the newspaper industry as a writer and an editor before entering the educational publishing business.

Bibliography

Cottier, Cody. (2021, February 25). Who was the first scientist? Discover. www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/who-was-the-first-scientist. Retrieved 23 May 2024.

Daston, L. (2017). The history of science and the history of knowledge. KNOW: A Journal on the Formation of Knowledge, 1(1), 131–154. doi.org/10.1086/691678

Gal, Ofer. (2021). The Origins of Modern Science: From antiquity to the scientific revolution. Cambridge University Press.

Goldman, S. (2020, September 28). The birth of modern science. Great Courses Daily. www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/birth-modern-science

Hepburn, B., and Andersen, H. (2021, June 1). Scientific method. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method.

Mark, Joshua. (2023, July 28). Ancient Greek science. World History Encyclopedia. www.worldhistory.org/Greek‗Science. Retrieved 23 May 2024.

Nathan, M. J. (2024). The quest for human nature: What philosophy and science have learned. Oxford University Press.

"Science." Britannica, 16 Nov. 2024, www.britannica.com/science/science. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

Shapin, S. (2018). The Scientific Revolution (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.

What is science? (2022, September 9). Understanding Science. undsci.berkeley.edu/understanding-science-101/what-is-science. Retrieved 23 May 2024.