Science is what? The definition, essence, tasks, fields and role of science

Science is the sphere of a person's professional activity, like any other - industrial, pedagogical, etc. The only difference is that the main goal that she pursues is obtaining scientific knowledge. This is its specificity.

History of the development of science

Ancient Greece is considered the European birthplace of science. The inhabitants of this particular country were the first to realize that the world surrounding a person is not at all what people think, who study it only through sensory cognition. In Greece, for the first time, the transition of the sensory to the abstract, from the knowledge of the facts of the world around us, to the study of its laws was made.

Science in the Middle Ages turned out to be dependent on theology, therefore its development slowed down considerably. However, over time, as a result of discoveries made by Galileo, Copernicus and Bruno, it began to exert an ever greater influence on the life of society. In Europe, in the 17th century, the process of its formation as a public institution was underway: academies and scientific societies were established, scientific journals were published.

New forms of its organization arose at the turn of the 19-20th centuries: scientific institutes and laboratories, research centers. Science began to exert a great influence on the development of production at about the same time. It has become a special kind of it - spiritual production.

Today in the field of science, the following three aspects can be distinguished:

• Science as a result (obtaining scientific knowledge);
• As a process (the very activity itself);
• As a social institution (a set of institutions of science, a community of scientists).

Science as an institution of society

Project and technological institutes (as well as hundreds of various scientific research), libraries, reserves and museums are part of the system of science institutions. A large part of its potential is concentrated in universities. In addition, in general schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, doctors and candidates of science are increasingly working today, which means that these educational institutions will become more actively involved in scientific work.

Staff

Any human activity implies that someone does it. Science is a social institution, the functioning of which is possible only with the availability of qualified personnel. Their preparation is carried out through postgraduate study, as well as the competition for the degree of candidate of science awarded to people with higher education who passed the special examinations, and also published the results of their research and defended their candidate's thesis in public. Doctors of sciences - this is a cadre of higher qualifications, which are prepared through a competition or through a doctoral candidacy nominated from among candidates of science.

Science as a result

Let us turn to the next aspect. As a result, science is a system of reliable knowledge of man, nature and society. It should be emphasized in this definition, two significant features. First, science is an interconnected set of knowledge acquired by mankind for today on all known issues. It meets the requirements of consistency and completeness. Secondly, the essence of science is the acquisition of reliable knowledge, which should be distinguished from everyday, everyday, inherent in every person.

The properties of science as a result

1. The cumulative nature of scientific knowledge. The volume of it doubles every 10 years.
2. Differentiation of science. The accumulation of scientific knowledge inevitably leads to fragmentation and differentiation. There are new its branches, for example: gender psychology, social psychology, etc.
3. Science in relation to practice has the following functions as a system of knowledge:

• Descriptive (accumulation and collection of facts, data);
• Explanatory - explanation of processes and phenomena, their internal mechanisms;
• Normative, or prescriptive - its achievements become, for example, mandatory standards for performance in school, in industry, etc .;
• Generalizing - the formulation of laws and laws that absorb and systematize many disparate facts and phenomena;
• Predictive - these knowledge allows us to foresee in advance certain phenomena and processes that were unknown before.

Scientific activity (science as a process)

If the practical worker in his activity pursues the achievement of high results, then the tasks of science mean that the researcher must strive to obtain new scientific knowledge. This also includes an explanation of why the result in one or another case turns out to be bad or good, and also the prediction in which cases it will be one or the other. In addition, if a practical worker takes into account all aspects of activity in a complex and simultaneously, then the researcher, as a rule, is interested in the deep study of only one side. For example, from the point of view of mechanics, a person is a body that has a certain mass, has a certain moment of inertia, etc. For chemists, it is a complex reactor, where millions of different chemical reactions take place simultaneously. Psychologists are interested in processes of memory, perception, etc. That is, each science examines various processes and phenomena with respect to a certain point of view. Therefore, by the way, the results obtained can only be interpreted as relative truths. Absolute truth in science is unattainable, this is the goal of metaphysics.

The role of science in modern society

In our time of scientific and technological progress, the inhabitants of the planet are especially clearly aware of the importance and place of science in their life. Today, more and more attention is paid to the implementation of scientific research in various fields. People are striving to obtain new data about the world, to create new technologies that improve the process of production of material goods.

Descartes' Method

Science today is the main form of knowledge of the world by man. At the heart is a complex creative process of the scientist's object-practical and intellectual activity. Descartes formulated the general rules of this process as follows:

• You can not accept anything as true until it is clear and distinct;
• It is necessary to divide difficult questions into the number of parts necessary to resolve them;
• It is required to begin research with the most convenient for knowledge and simple things and to pass gradually to more complex;
• The duty of the scientist is to pay attention to everything, to dwell on the details: he must be completely sure that he has not missed anything.

The ethical side of science

Especially acute in modern science are issues that relate to the relationship of the scientist with society, as well as the social responsibility of the researcher. It's about how the achievements made by scientists will be applied in the future, whether the knowledge gained will not turn against a person.

Discoveries in genetic engineering, medicine, biology have provided an opportunity to act purposefully on the heredity of organisms to the point that today it is possible to create organisms that possess certain predetermined properties. It is time to abandon the principle of freedom of scientific search, which has not been limited by anything before. We must not allow the creation of weapons of mass destruction. The definition of science today, therefore, must include the ethical side, since it can not remain neutral in this respect.