What is science?

[Dr-A-K-Mazhar]

What is science

The words ‘science’ and ‘scientist’ are surprisingly modern inventions. The word ‘scientist’ was coined by the Victorian polymath William Whewell, who used it in the Quarterly Review in March 1834. The Americans accepted and used the word almost immediately, and by the end of the century it was also popular in Britain

The word ‘science’ in the English-speaking world was not always so designated. The Oxford English Dictionary proffers the following homophones: Sienz, ciens, cience, siens, syence, syense, scyence, scyense, scyens, science, sciens, and scians
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All derived from the Latin scientia, which mean ‘knowledge’, and it supplanted other terms such as"natural philosopher

But no one construes “science” merely as knowledge. It is thought of rather as knowledge hard won, in which we have much more confidence than we have in opinion, hearsay, or popular sayings

The history of the word and the changes in its meanings need to be studied carefully to be able to distinguish between the implied different meanings and be able to differentiate between science, knowledge, and information

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Here is a selection of quotations about Science<O

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S1) Science is organized knowledge<O
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), English philosopher<O


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S2) Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition

Adam Smith ( 1723-1790), Scottish economist

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S3) Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you do not know

Bertrand Russell (1892-1970), English philosopher

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S4) Science is a series of judgments, revised without ceasing<O
Pierre Emile Duclaux (1840-1904), French bacteriologist<O

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S5) Science is the desire to know causes<O
William Hazlitt ( 1778-1830), English essayist<O

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S6) Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another
Thomas Hobbes ( 1588-1679), English philosopher<O


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S7) Science is an imaginative adventure of the mind seeking truth in a world of mystery
Cyril Herman Hinshelwood ( 1897-1967), English Chemist

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S8) Science is a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself
Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898-1988), American physicist<O

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S9) Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast over nature

Jacob Bronowski(1908-1974), British scientist and author

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S10) The essence of science is to ask an impertinent question and you are on the way to a pertinent answer
Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974), British scientist and author<O

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S11) In essence, science is perpetual search for an intelligent and integrated comprehension of the world we live in

Cornelius Van Neil (1897-1985), American microbiologist

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S12) The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one who asks the write questions<O
Claude Levi-Strauss (November 1908 – October 2009) , French anthropologist<O

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S13) Truth in science can best be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one
Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989), Austrian zoologist<O

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S14) Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary

Albert Einstein (1979-1955), German physicist<O

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