What Is the Difference Between Natural Sciences?
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATURAL SCIENCES AND ALL OTHER AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE TO THAT ALL OF THEIR CONCLUSIONS ARE PROVISIONAL?
Helen Kahur
January 2013
Introduction
Karl Raimund Popper, an English philosopher was curious about a certain question, which was ’’whats the difference between natural science, and other areas of knowledge?’’. Popper’s response to that was that scientific claims could technically be disproved, whereas non-scientific ones couldn’t. A theory, which cannot be disproved with no possible fact nor action, is non-scientific, in other words, an area of knowledge.
Natural sciences, as interpreted from the name, are the most important and natural divisions of science, for example biology, chemistry and physics. These three are referred to as ’’the most important’’, due to the infinite discoveries that can be and have been found based on those three areas. What Popper wanted was to get rid of prejudices such as that scientific knowledge needs to be a ’’proven’’ knowledge. This statement was made, because in reality, you cannot disprove nor prove a natural science theory, because they are all very abstract assumptions, and assumptions can often appear to be wrong. A scientific theory, is solely a set of hypotheses, which are recognized as long as its not a forgery. There must always be ways to refute the theory, and to maintain a critical distance in relation to the theory, because thats the only way to progress in science. As long as a theory is disproved, it may be referred to as ’’confirmed’’, but not proven. The objective of science is initially the truth, but it may be, that whilst finding the truth, the scientist does not know himself that he has found the truth. Popper’s own inquiries and curiosities created his own ’’theory’’ in a way, which was that ’’We cannot prove anything in science but we can disprove.’’
During the life of Thomas Kuhn, an American philosopher, there was a wifely spread belief that science is progressing
Helen Kahur
January 2013
Introduction
Karl Raimund Popper, an English philosopher was curious about a certain question, which was ’’whats the difference between natural science, and other areas of knowledge?’’. Popper’s response to that was that scientific claims could technically be disproved, whereas non-scientific ones couldn’t. A theory, which cannot be disproved with no possible fact nor action, is non-scientific, in other words, an area of knowledge.
Natural sciences, as interpreted from the name, are the most important and natural divisions of science, for example biology, chemistry and physics. These three are referred to as ’’the most important’’, due to the infinite discoveries that can be and have been found based on those three areas. What Popper wanted was to get rid of prejudices such as that scientific knowledge needs to be a ’’proven’’ knowledge. This statement was made, because in reality, you cannot disprove nor prove a natural science theory, because they are all very abstract assumptions, and assumptions can often appear to be wrong. A scientific theory, is solely a set of hypotheses, which are recognized as long as its not a forgery. There must always be ways to refute the theory, and to maintain a critical distance in relation to the theory, because thats the only way to progress in science. As long as a theory is disproved, it may be referred to as ’’confirmed’’, but not proven. The objective of science is initially the truth, but it may be, that whilst finding the truth, the scientist does not know himself that he has found the truth. Popper’s own inquiries and curiosities created his own ’’theory’’ in a way, which was that ’’We cannot prove anything in science but we can disprove.’’
During the life of Thomas Kuhn, an American philosopher, there was a wifely spread belief that science is progressing