Science

Science is a methodology for discovering and classifying knowledge. The scope of science encompasses all measurable phenomena. Science falls under two scopes: natural science, dealing with the physical, natural world, and social science, dealing with society and human nature.

Science differs from other methodologies of classifying knowledge in that a scientific theory is a description of the world which can be disproved; this is known as falsifiability. It is this property which distinguishes science from other possible methods of discovering knowledge.

Epicurus is an important figure in the development of the scientific method. He insisted that nothing should be accepted except that which has been sufficiently tested through direct observation and logical deduction. Roger Bacon is hailed by many the father of modern science. His focus on empirical approaches to science was influential. He wrote an encyclopedia, his Opus Majus.

People who study science are called scientists. Most of the early scientists who started many of the scientific fields, and some of history's greatest thinkers, such as Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, believed in God, or some other higher power, and many were creationists. In addition, Christianity played a pivotal role in the development of modern science. In recent years, American scientists have been much more atheistic as a group than the general public.

Principles of science

The basis of modern science is observation and hypothesis, it involves constructing the best theory to explain an occurrence based on the evidence at the time. The generally accepted scientific procedure is:

• Observations of an unknown phenomenon are made
• A hypothesis is made to explain to explain the observations
• A experiment or experiments are carried out to test the hypothesis.
  • If the experiment supports the hypothesis it is considered a theory
  • If the experiment does not support the hypothesis it is either rewritten or discarded
• If at a later date evidence is produced which contradicts the theory, it is discarded and a new hypothesis is developed

One of the fundamental tenets of science is that no theory is absolute; theories are constantly changing in response to the observation of new evidence. Hence, a scientific theory that begins with an immutable conclusion and attempts to "fit the facts" to that argument does not fall within the realm of true scientific research.{fact}

Naturalism and science

Since the beginning of modern science, scientists have worked under the assumption that their subjects of study have been controlled by consistent natural laws. Some claim that this assumption was based on the Christian view that the laws were created by a consistent creator Who didn't change those laws on a whim. This assumption is seen as a prerequisite for logical deduction to act on the observations made. Without the assumption that the universe is consistent we cannot apply the lessons drawn from an observation to any area other than the observations themselves. If a chemical reaction occurs in a given solution in a laboratory in one city it is assumed that the same reaction can occur in a different laboratory in a different city on a different day because the chemical solution and situations will be the same.

If a capricious supernatural force was to enter the equation they could not be controlled for and could not be studied.

Science can only study the natural, not the supernatural, but this is not the same as assuming that the supernatural does not exist. The latter is what is known as naturalism, but despite the claims of atheists and others, is not a prerequisite of science.

Religious cultivation of early modern science

Historian and professor of religion Eugene M Klaaren holds that "a belief in divine creation" was central to an emergence of science in seventeenth-century England. The philosopher Michael B. Foster has published influential analytical philosophy connecting Christian doctrines of creation with empiricism. Historian William B. Ashworth has argued against the historical notion of distinctive mind-sets and the idea of Catholic and Protestant sciences in "Catholicism and early modern science." Historians James R. Jacob and Margaret C. Jacob have published the paper "The Anglican Origins of Modern Science," which endeavors to show a linkage between seventeenth century Anglican intellectual transformations and influential English scientists (e.g., Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton).

Two well-respected theological surveys, which also cover additional interactions occurring in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, are John Dillenberger's Protestant Thought and Natural Science (Doubleday, 1960) and Christopher B. Kaiser's Creation and the History of Science (Eerdmans, 1991).

When natural philosophers referred to laws of nature, they were not glibly choosing that metaphor. Laws were the result of legislation by an intelligent deity. Thus the philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) insisted that he was discovering the "laws that God has put into nature." Later Newton would declare that the regulation of the solar system presupposed the "counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."

University of California at Berkeley-educated historian Ronald L. Numbers has stated that this thesis "received a boost" from mathematician and philosopherAlfred North Whitehead's Science and the Modern World (1925). Numbers has also claimed "Despite the manifest shortcomings of the claim that Christianity gave birth to science—most glaringly, it ignores or minimizes the contributions of ancient Greeks and medieval Muslims—it too, refuses to succumb to the death it deserves. The sociologist Rodney Stark at Baylor University, a Southern Baptist institution, is only the latest in a long line of Christian apologists to insist that 'Christian theology was essential for the rise of science.'"

See also

• Scientific method
• Computing