Scientific

Science in the broadest sense refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means. more...

Home
Advertising
Badges/ Patches
Bottles/ Pots
Breweriana
Cigarette/ Tea/ Gum Cards
Clocks
Decorative Ornaments/ Plates
Disneyana
Ethnographic
Fantasy/ Myth/ Magic
Flags
Household
Jukeboxes
Keyrings
Kitchenalia
Knives/ Swords
Masonic
Memorabilia
Metalware
Militaria
Moneyboxes/ Piggy Banks
Paper & Ephemera
Pens & Writing Equipment
Phone Cards
Photographic Images
Radio/ Television/ Telephony
Religion/ Spirituality
Rocks/ Fossils/ Minerals
Royalty
Science Fiction
Scientific
Engineering/ Surveying
Medical
Optical
Other Scientific
Pharmacy/ Chemist/...
Scientific Instruments
Space Exploration
Sewing/ Fabric/ Textiles
Theatre/ Opera/ Ballet
Tobacciana/ Smoking
Tools & Hardware
Trading Cards/ CCG

In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism, as well as to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such research. This article focuses on the meaning of science in the latter sense.

Scientists maintain that scientific investigation must adhere to the scientific method, a process for properly developing and evaluating natural explanations for observable phenomena based on empirical study and independent verification. Science typically, therefore, rejects supernatural explanations, arguments from authority and biased observational studies.

Fields of science are commonly classified along two major lines:

Natural sciences, which study natural phenomena, and; Social sciences, which study human behavior and societies.;

Whether mathematics is a science is a matter of perspective. It is similar to other sciences in that it is a careful, systematic study of an area of knowledge — specifically, it addresses such notions as quantity, structure, space, and change — but its method of arriving at conclusions is quite different, being based upon rigorous proof from prior results, ultimately resting upon fundamentally unprovable assumptions. Mathematics as a whole is vital to the sciences — indeed, major advances in mathematics have often led to major advances in other sciences. Certain aspects of mathematics are indispensable for the formation of hypotheses, theories, and laws, both in discovering and describing how things work (natural sciences) and how people think and act (social sciences).

Science as defined above is sometimes termed pure science in order to differentiate it from applied science, the latter being the application of scientific research to human needs.

Etymology

The word science comes from the Latin word scientia for knowledge, which in turn comes from scio - I know. The Indo-European root means to discern or to separate, akin to Sanskrit chyati, he cuts off, Greek schizein, to split, Latin scindere, to split. From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, science or scientia meant any systematic or exact recorded knowledge. Science therefore had the same sort of very broad meaning that philosophy had at that time. In some languages, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, the word corresponding to science still carries this meaning.

Sciences versus Science: the plural of the term is often used but is difficult to distinguish in usage without referring to a complex etymology like the above. Therefore it might be helpful to distinguish "sciences" generally as relating to "whole bodies of knowledge" that are separated in some way, as by discipline, subject(s), or most generally, by references meaning without regard to time.

Read more at Wikipedia.org