What Is Science? Essay, Research Paper
Science is one word in the English dictionary, that could have many different meanings. Many times, human?s will attempt to reach too far, and distort the true meaning of a word, as is the case with science. After reading the selected material in Science & Its Limits, The Beginners Guide to the Scientific Method, and How we know, it?s quite easy to gain a ?simple? knowledge of the word. Science can be defined as the testing of nature to explain how things work. Through the study of science, many questions about the world we live in can be answered. Through science, we see many of the boundaries and rules of our natural world. Science also gives us a way to make conclusions about evidence that we?ve not yet discovered.
Throughout the books, there are very drastic viewpoints about some of the basic elements of science. Science & Its Limits explains many of the viewpoints through a Christian perspective. Science is a great tool for Christians to have ?hard proof? of what is already revealed in the Bible. When God created the Earth, he made absolutes that only God could ordain. Nature works on boundaries that only God fully knows about. Science is an attempt by us to understand and explain the rules the God set in place many years ago. The viewpoints of this book reflect that of our discussions so far in class. Through our Christian perspective, God is the ultimate truth and only he has all the answers for the world. He chose to reveal himself to us in two ways, through his teachings and his only son Jesus Christ. In both instances, he revealed many things that he didn?t have to reveal. The bible is the best source for information about the world that we live in. Also, we have the empirical knowledge that we obtain about the natural world that compliments the scriptures and in result, helps us better know our creator.
The book A beginners guide to the Scientific Method gives a very brief definition of what science is. The author?s viewpoint is very secular in itself. He feels that humans can not begin to come up with a definition for science mainly because the subject is so broad. Throughout the chapter, he does try to give the reader some concept of what his own definition is. According to Stephen Carey, science can be defined as a process or method by which something can be proven. The first step, is to find something that is relatively unknown. Then a line of reasoning must be brought up of why the subject doesn?t make sense. Next, the reasoning needs to be tested in order to try and conclude or explain the subject. Finally, one can determine if your tests answered your original decision worked or not. This book does not acknowledge the existence that God has ordained the ramifications of nature and that he is still in control. This book only explains the physical aspects of how the Earth was put in place, and how we can study it in a simple matter.
How we know gives the idea that science can be used as a tool for figuring out our world for yourself. This book is very similar in many aspects to Stephen Carey?s A beginners guide to the Scientific Method. The Goldstein?s also use the same thought process of how to figure out the phenomena of the natural world. However, in the book How we know a whole different approach and attitude is taken. An attitude that the means of figuring of figuring out nature are present, but the conclusions may never be found. If you do make a discovery, it is likely that others will try and contradict your findings based on the evidence they have found. The main viewpoint that both How we know and A beginners guide to the Scientific Method miss is that God has the answers and he has set the absolutes truths of this world. Things can be explained through the scriptures he has given us.
All these resources have different views. Without a Christian perspective there is no hope for finding answers about the world. You will only be left with a set of different questions, and you will have to find a new set of answers, and hopefully those answers satisfy you. However, anything you hold to be true can be challenged by new claims and evidence. With God?s word we can have the answers we are looking for