Science is a sphere of human professional activity, like any other - industrial, pedagogical, etc. Its only difference is that its main goal is to obtain 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 knowledge. In Greece, for the first time, the transition of the sensual to the abstract was made, from the knowledge of the facts of the world around us to the study of its laws.
Science in the Middle Ages turned out to be dependent on theology, so its development slowed down significantly. However, over time, as a result of the discoveries received 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 took place: academies and scientific societies were established, scientific journals were published.
New forms of its organization arose at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries: scientific institutesand laboratories, research centers. Science began to exert a great influence on the development of production around the same time. It has become a special kind of it - spiritual production.
Today, in the field of science, the following 3 aspects can be distinguished:
- science as a result (obtaining scientific knowledge);
- as a process (scientific activity itself);
- as a social institution (a set of scientific institutions, a community of scientists).
Science as an institution of society
Design and technological institutes (as well as hundreds of various research institutes), libraries, nature reserves and museums are included in the system of scientific institutions. A significant part of its potential is concentrated in universities. In addition, more and more doctors and candidates of sciences are working in general education schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, which means that these educational institutions will be more actively involved in scientific work.
Personnel
Any human activity implies that someone is doing it. Science is a social institution, the functioning of which is possible only if there are qualified personnel. Their preparation is carried out through postgraduate studies, as well as the degree of Candidate of Science, awarded to people with higher education who have passed special examinations, as well as published the results of their research and publicly defended their PhD thesis. Doctors of Science are highly qualified personnel who are trained through the competition or through doctoral studies.nominated from among candidates of sciences.
Science as a result
Let's move on to the next aspect. As a result, science is a system of reliable knowledge about man, nature and society. Two essential features should be emphasized in this definition. First, science is an interconnected body of knowledge acquired by mankind to date on all known issues. It meets the requirements of consistency and completeness. Secondly, the essence of science lies in the acquisition of reliable knowledge, which should be distinguished from everyday, everyday, inherent in every person.
Properties of science as a result
- The cumulative nature of scientific knowledge. Its volume doubles every 10 years.
- Differentiation of science. The accumulation of scientific knowledge inevitably leads to fragmentation and differentiation. New branches of it are emerging, for example: gender psychology, social psychology, etc.
- Science in relation to practice has the following functions as a knowledge system:
- 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 implementation at school, at work, etc.;
- generalizing - formulating patterns and laws that absorb and systematize many disparate facts and phenomena;
- predictive - this knowledge allows you to foresee in advancesome phenomena and processes previously unknown.
Scientific activity (science as a process)
If a practical worker in his activity pursues the achievement of high results, then the tasks of science imply that the researcher should strive to obtain new scientific knowledge. This includes an explanation of why the result in one case or another turns out to be bad or good, as well as a prediction in which cases it will be one way or another. In addition, if a practical worker takes into account in a complex and simultaneously all aspects of activity, then the researcher, as a rule, is interested in a deep study of only one aspect. 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 the most complex reactor, where millions of different chemical reactions take place simultaneously. Psychologists are interested in the processes of memory, perception, etc. That is, each science studies various processes and phenomena from 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 significance and place of science in their lives. Today, more and more attention in society is paid to the implementation of scientific research in various fields. People strive to obtain new data about the world, to create newtechnologies that improve the process of production of material goods.
Descartes method
Science today is the main form of human knowledge of the world. It is based on a complex creative process of subject-practical and mental activity of a scientist. Descartes formulated the general rules for this process as follows:
- nothing can be accepted as true until it appears distinct and clear;
- need to divide difficult questions by the number of parts needed to solve them;
- required to start research with the most convenient and simple things for learning and move gradually to more complex ones;
- The duty of a scientist is to pay attention to everything, dwell on the details: he must be completely sure that he has not missed anything.
The ethical side of science
Issues related to the relationship of a scientist with society, as well as the social responsibility of a researcher, are becoming especially acute in modern science. We are talking about how the achievements made by scientists will be applied in the future, whether the knowledge gained will turn against a person.
Discoveries in genetic engineering, medicine, biology have made it possible to influence purposefully the heredity of organisms to the extent that today it is possible to create organisms with some predetermined properties. The time has come to abandon the principle of freedom of scientific research, which was previously not limited by anything. Cannot be createdmeans of mass destruction. The definition of science today, therefore, must also include the ethical side, since it cannot remain neutral in this respect.
