PART THREE
‘What science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.’
Bertrand Russell
‘Science’ is such a wide-ranging concept that a precise definition is often elusive or unhelpful. In its broadest terms, though, it may be thought of as the area of intellectual endeavour that seeks systematic, rational explanations for what happens around us, from the microscopic to the cosmological level.
Carl Sagan, described it as ‘more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking . . . Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous sceptical scrutiny of everything – new ideas and established wisdom.’
Science can be broken down into myriad categories and subcategories but to begin with it is useful to think of the natural sciences, as distinct from the ‘formal sciences’ of mathematics and logic, or the ‘social sciences’ (disciplines, such as geography, that seek to explain human and social behaviour). The natural sciences are often divided into the two major branches of the physical sciences and the life sciences.
The physical sciences are primarily concerned with the inorganic, inanimate world. Traditionally, they are considered to include astronomy, chemistry, physics and the Earth sciences, although there is overlap between the various branches. Astronomers, for instance, investigate celestial objects (stars and planets, asteroids and comets, galaxies and the universe in its entirety) distinct of the Earth, though not excluding the Earth as a unified entity. But in striving to understand the past, present and future of such objects, the astronomer constantly calls upon physics and chemistry for answers.
At a basic level, physics may be seen as focused on the nature and behaviour of individual atoms and sub-atomic matter, whereas chemistry looks at molecules (collections of atoms). Earth science, meanwhile, is concerned with the physical make-up of our planet and its atmosphere as a whole. Geology, oceanography and meteorology are, thus, all sub-sets of Earth science, and there are a great many more besides.
There is evidence of the development of scientific discipline among the ancient cultures of the Egyptians, Greeks and Mesopotamians, among others. As humans grew unsatisfied by mythical, mystical, animist and theological explanations for the natural phenomena they witnessed, a more rational, observation-based attempt to make sense of the world slowly evolved. In terms of the physical sciences as we understand them today – at least in terms of methodology – the modern age is generally considered to have started around the 18th century and the time of the Enlightenment (see here).