The History of Science

On the simplest level, science is knowledge of the world of nature. There are many regularities in nature that mankind has had to recognize for survival since the emergence of Homo sapiens as a species. The Sun and the Moon periodically repeat their movements. Some motions, like the daily " motion" of the Sun, are simple to observe; others, like the annual " motion" of the Sun, are far more difficult. Both motions corre­late with important terrestrial events. Day and night provide the basic rhythm of human existence; the seasons determine the migration of ani­mals upon which humans depended for millennia for survival. With the invention of agriculture, the seasons became even more crucial, for fail­ure to recognize the proper time for planting could lead to starvation. Science defined simply as knowledge of natural processes is universal among mankind, and it has existed since the dawn of human existence.

The mere recognition of regularities does not exhaust the full mean­ing of science, however. In the first place, regularities may be simply constructs of the human mind. Humans leap to conclusions; the mind cannot tolerate chaos, so it constructs regularities even when none ob­jectively exists. Thus, for example, one of the astronomical " laws" of the Middle Ages was that the appearance of comets presaged a great up­heaval, as the Norman Conquest of Britain followed the comet of 1066. True regularities must be established by detached examination of data. Science, therefore, must employ a certain degree of skepticism to prevent premature generalization.

Regularities, even when expressed mathematically as laws of nature, are not fully satisfactory to everyone. Some insist that genuine under­standing demands explanations of the causes of the laws, but it is in the realm of causation that there is the greatest disagreement. Modern quan­tum mechanics, for example, has given up the quest for causation and today rests only on mathematical description. Modern biology, on the other hand, thrives on causal chains that permit the understanding of physiological and evolutionary processes in terms of the physical activi­ties of entities such as molecules, cells, and organisms. But even if causa­tion and explanation are admitted as necessary, there is little agreement on the kinds of causes that are permissible, or possible, in science.

Certain conventions governed the appeal to God or the gods or to spirits. Gods and spirits, it was held, could not be completely arbitrary in their actions; otherwise the proper response would be propitiation, not rational investigation. But since the deity or deities were themselves ra­tional, or bound by rational principles, it was possible for humans to uncover the rational order of the world.

Science, then, is to be considered as knowledge of natural regulari­ties that is subjected to some degree of skeptical rigour and explained by rational causes. One final caution is necessary. Nature is known only through the senses, of which sight, touch, and hearing are the dominant ones, arid the human notion of reality is skewed toward the objects of these senses. The invention of such instruments as the telescope, the mi­croscope, and the Geiger counter has brought an ever-increasing range of phenomena within the scope of the senses. Thus, scientific knowledge, of the world is only partial, and the progress of science follows the ability of humans to make phenomena perceivable.