1.2 WHAT IS SCIENCE?
The word "science" comes from the Latin word scientia, which means "knowledge". Scientists are people who try to find out all about the world we live in. They want to understand how everything works. Science is the special method they use to find things out. Science is also the well-organised and reliable knowledge that scientists have already discovered and agreed about. To keep these two ideas about science separate, we often talk about scientific method and scientific knowledge. So what sorts of things do scientists study, and what is the special, practical method they use?
What do scientists study? Scientists study almost everything! Because science is so broad, it is often split up into different branches. The three traditional branches are called biology, chemistry and physics. You may hear of other sciences too. Each has its own special interests, but they all involve one or more of the three main branches. There are many overlaps. For example, astronomy is the study of all the natural objects we see in the sky, such as the sun, moon, stars and planets. Astronomers use both physics and chemistry in their work.
What methods do scientists use? People have always tried to find out about the world around them and a number of scientific discoveries were made in ancient times. However, science as we know it today began only a few hundred years ago when scholars started to study things in a new way. These scholars looked very closely at the things that interested them. They tried to measure accurately and describe clearly the things they observed. They also tried to develop ideas to explain why things happen the way they do. Finally they did practical tests to see if their ideas were correct. Science still works in this way. When the practical tests are successful, scientists write about their work so that other scientists can check it. When everyone agrees that a new idea is correct, it is added to scientific knowledge. The main steps, or processes, in this scientific method are summarised below. You will learn more about these processes later in this chapter.
- 1. Discuss with your friends and your teacher, which branches of science might study each of the following, and which are not usually studied by science at all? Energy, humans, religion, air, rocks, flowers, beauty, food, stars, snakes, reflections, stories, thunder, gold, war.
- 2. How do scientists get new ideas about something? How do they find out if their ideas are correct?
- 3. In the scientific method, what do you think we mean by the words observing and summarising?
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