- #1
Another God
Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
- 988
- 4
"Science is nothing more than the continued observation and improvement of observing techniques of a given phenomenon for the application of philosophical reflection."
This incredibly simple definition of science occurred to me the other day, and so I needed to come back to good old physics forums and get some criticism on it to see where it stands.
It seems like so much argument has been put into what science is, and how it is special and better than standard philosophy etc, while other people question how it is any different, observing that the conclusions may be just as biased etc.
Such discussion and confusion may be simply avoided by dividing the traditional view of science into the two parts which necessarily exist. There is the observation, and then there is the consideration of what that means. There is no question as to the fact that that is what science is...but if we remove the consideration part and just call that philosophy (for that IS what philosophy IS) then science is enigmatic no more.
Science is crucial to the continued understanding of our world. Philosophy CAN be done without real world observations and data, but more and more philosophy is being done based on such observations. These observations come from scientific enquiry. Seperate them. Science observes, philosophy attempts to understand. Scientists are philosophers. Philosophers need not be scientists, yet they frequently interpret what scientists have said.
"Science is nothing more than the continued observation and improvement of observing techniques of a given phenomenon for the application of philosophical reflection."
This incredibly simple definition of science occurred to me the other day, and so I needed to come back to good old physics forums and get some criticism on it to see where it stands.
It seems like so much argument has been put into what science is, and how it is special and better than standard philosophy etc, while other people question how it is any different, observing that the conclusions may be just as biased etc.
Such discussion and confusion may be simply avoided by dividing the traditional view of science into the two parts which necessarily exist. There is the observation, and then there is the consideration of what that means. There is no question as to the fact that that is what science is...but if we remove the consideration part and just call that philosophy (for that IS what philosophy IS) then science is enigmatic no more.
Science is crucial to the continued understanding of our world. Philosophy CAN be done without real world observations and data, but more and more philosophy is being done based on such observations. These observations come from scientific enquiry. Seperate them. Science observes, philosophy attempts to understand. Scientists are philosophers. Philosophers need not be scientists, yet they frequently interpret what scientists have said.
"Science is nothing more than the continued observation and improvement of observing techniques of a given phenomenon for the application of philosophical reflection."