Science

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THIS IS STUPID!! WHO REASEARCHES THIS KINDA STUFF??????????????????????????????????? Science is retarded! or wisdom, to a focus on manipulating nature, i.e. power, and that science's emphasis on manipulating nature leads it inevitably to manipulate people, as well. Science's focus on quantitative measures has led to critiques that it is unable to recognize important qualitative aspects of the world. It is not clear, however, if this kind of criticism is adequate to a vast number of non-experimental scientifics fields like astronomy, cosmology, evolutionary biology, complexity theory, paleontology, paleoanthropology, archeology, earth sciences, climatology, ecology and other sciences, like statistical physics of irreversible non-linear systems, that emphasize systemic and historically contingent frozen accidents. Considerations about the philosophical impact of science to the discussion of the meaning (or lack thereof) in human existence are not suppressed but strongly discussed in the literature of science divulgation, a movement sometimes called The Third Culture.

The implications of the ideological denial of ethics for the practice of science itself in terms of fraud, plagiarism, and data falsification, has been criticized by several academics. In "Science and Ethics", the philosopher Bernard Rollin examines the ideology that denies the relevance of ethics to science, and argues in favor of making education in ethics part and parcel of scientific training.

The media and the scientific debate

The mass media face a number of pressures that can prevent them from accurately depicting competing scientific claims in terms of their credibility within the scientific community as a whole. Determining how much weight to give different sides in a scientific debate requires considerable expertise on the issue at hand. Few journalists have real scientific knowledge, and even beat reporters who know a great deal about certain scientific issues may know little about other ones they are suddenly asked to cover.

Epistemological issues

Psychologist Carl Jung believed that though science attempted to understand all of nature, the experimental method used would pose artificial, conditional questions that evoke only partial answers. Robert Anton Wilson criticized science for using instruments to ask questions that produce answers only meaningful in terms of the instrument, and that there was no such thing as a completely objective vantage point from which to view the results of science. Parkin suggests that, compared to other ways of knowing (ex. divination), the epistemological stance of science is on the same spectrum as any other approach; it is simply in a different area of the range in terms of its specific techniques and processes. In this sense, to the degree that divination is an epistemologically specific means of gaining insight into a given question, Parkin suggests that science itself can be considered a form of divination that is framed from a Western view of the nature (and thus possible applications) of knowledge (i.e. a Western epistemology).

Scientific community

Main article: Scientific community

The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science.

Fields

Main article: Fields of science

Fields of science are commonly classified along two major lines: natural sciences, which study natural phenomena (including biological life), and social sciences, which study human behavior and societies. These groupings are empirical sciences, which means the knowledge must be based on observable phenomena and capable of being experimented for its validity by other researchers working under the same conditions. There are also related disciplines that are grouped into interdisciplinary and applied sciences, such as engineering and health science. Within these categories are specialized scientific fields that can include elements of other scientific disciplines but often possess their own terminology and body of expertise.

Mathematics, which is sometimes classified within a third group of science called formal science, has both similarities and differences with the natural and social sciences. It is similar to empirical sciences in that it involves an objective, careful and systematic study of an area of knowledge; it is different because of its method of verifying its knowledge, using a priori rather than empirical methods. Formal science, which also includes statistics and logic, is vital to the empirical sciences. Major advances in formal science have often led to major advances in the physical and biological sciences. The formal sciences are essential in the formation of hypotheses, theories, and laws, both in discovering and describing how things work (natural sciences) and how people think and act (social sciences).

Institutions

Learned societies for the communication and promotion of scientific thought and experimentation have existed since the Renaissance period. The oldest surviving institution is the Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Italy. National Academy of Sciences are distinguished institutions that exist in a number of countries, beginning with the British Royal Society in 1660 and the French Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in 1666.

International scientific organizations, such as the International Council for Science, have since been formed to promote cooperation between the scientific communities of different nations. More recently, influential government agencies have been created to support scientific research, including the National Science Foundation in the U.S.

Other prominent organizations include the academies of science of many nations, CSIRO in Australia, Centre national de la recherche scientifique in France, Max Planck Society and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Germany, and in Spain, CSIC.

Literature

Main article: Scientific literature

An enormous range of scientific literature is published. Scientific journals communicate and document the results of research carried out in universities and various other research institutions, serving as an archival record of science. The first scientific journals, Journal des Sçavans followed by the Philosophical Transactions, began publication in 1665. Since that time the total number of active periodicals has steadily increased. As of 1981, one estimate for the number of scientific and technical journals in publication was 11,500. Today Pubmed lists almost 40,000, related to the medical sciences only.

Most scientific journals cover a single scientific field and publish the research within that field; the research is normally expressed in the form of a scientific paper. Science has become so pervasive in modern societies that it is generally considered necessary to communicate the achievements, news, and ambitions of scientists to a wider populace.

Science magazines such as New Scientist, Science & Vie and Scientific American cater to the needs of a much wider readership and provide a non-technical summary of popular areas of research, including notable discoveries and advances in certain fields of research. Science books engage the interest of many more people. Tangentially, the science fiction genre, primarily fantastic in nature, engages the public imagination and transmits the ideas, if not the methods, of science.

Recent efforts to intensify or develop links between science and non-scientific disciplines such as Literature or, more specifically, Poetry, include the Creative Writing <-> Science resource developed through the Royal Literary Fund.

Application	Military funding of science Scientific computing Scientific enterprise Science and technology
Controversy	Fringe science Junk science Pathological science Pseudoscience Relationship between religion and science Creation-evolution controversy Scientific misconduct Scientific skepticism
History	History of science and technology Historiography of science Protoscience Scientific constants named after people Scientific laws named after people Scientific phenomena named after people Scientific revolution Scientific units named after people Scientometry
Philosophy	Naturalism (philosophy) Philosophy of science Rhetoric of science Scientific method Antiscience
Media	List of publications in science Science.tv

Notes

^ Fritjof Capra, Uncommon Wisdom, ISBN 0-671-47322-0, p. 213
Rollin, Bernard E. (2006). Science and Ethics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521857546. OCLC 238793190.
Dickson, David (October 11, 2004). "Science journalism must keep a critical edge". Science and Development Network. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
Mooney, Chris (2007). "Blinded By Science, How 'Balanced' Coverage Lets the Scientific Fringe Hijack Reality". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 2008-02-20.
McIlwaine, S. (2005). "Are Journalism Students Equipped to Write About Science?". Australian Studies in Journalism. 14: 41–60. Retrieved 2008-02-20. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
Jung, Carl (1973). Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Princeton University Press. p. 35. ISBN 0691017948.
Wilson, Robert Anton. Real Reality (Adobe Flash video). YouTube. {{cite AV media}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); External link in |title= (help); Unknown parameter |year2= ignored (help)
Parkin, D. Simulaneity and Sequencing in the Oracular Speech of Kenyan Diviners, page 185. Indiana University Press, 1991.
^ Popper, Karl (2002) . The Logic of Scientific Discovery (2nd English edition ed.). New York, NY: Routledge Classics. ISBN 0-415-27844-9. OCLC 59377149. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
See: Editorial Staff (March 7, 2007). "Scientific Method: Relationships among Scientific Paradigms". Seed magazine. Retrieved 2007-09-12.
Parrott, Jim (August 9, 2007). "Chronicle for Societies Founded from 1323 to 1599". Scholarly Societies Project. Retrieved 2007-09-11.
"Benvenuto nel sito dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei" (in Italian). Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. 2006. Retrieved 2007-09-11.
"Brief history of the Society". The Royal Society. Retrieved 2007-09-11.
Meynell, G.G. "The French Academy of Sciences, 1666-91: A reassessment of the French Académie royale des sciences under Colbert (1666-83) and Louvois (1683-91)". Topics in Scientific & Medical History. Retrieved 2007-09-11.
Ziman, Bhadriraju (1980). "The proliferation of scientific literature: a natural process". Science. 208 (4442): 369–371. doi:10.1126/science.7367863. PMID 7367863.
Subramanyam, Krishna (1981). Scientific and Technical Information Resources. CRC Press. ISBN 0824782976. OCLC 232950234. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
ftp://ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/pubmed/J_Entrez.txt
Petrucci, Mario. "Creative Writing <-> Science". Retrieved 2008-04-27.

References

Feyerabend, Paul (2005). Science, history of the philosophy, as cited in Honderich, Ted (2005). The Oxford companion to philosophy. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199264791. OCLC 173262485. of. Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford.
Papineau, David. (2005). Science, problems of the philosophy of., as cited in Honderich, Ted (2005). The Oxford companion to philosophy. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199264791. OCLC 173262485.
Feynman, R.P. (1999). The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman. Perseus Books Group. ISBN 0465023959. OCLC 181597764.
Parkin, D (1991). "Simulaneity and Sequencing in the Oracular Speech of Kenyan Diviners." In Philip M. Peek (ed) African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.