While science encompasses many disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, biology, and the geosciences, these disciplines often take different approaches to the study of reality. There also are different ways to define science. A lay person might see it as a body of information, a scientist might define it as set of procedures by which hypotheses are tested, and a philosopher might regard it as a way to question the truth of what we know. Each of these views is a valid, but only partial, definition of science. Collectively, however, these concepts begin to define the comprehensive nature of science, which is why a comprehensive science program should include inquiry, as well as the skill building investigations that demonstrate universal laws of science.
Science is a way of knowing about the world.
In science, explanations are limited to those that can be inferred from confirmable data - the results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. When observations of a phenomenon have been confirmed or can be repeated, they are regarded as fact. Any scientific confirmation is, however, tentative, because it is always possible that the results occurred by chance. A scientific theory is a body of continually refined observation, inference, and testable hypotheses. Because science is never irrevocably committed to any theory, no matter how firmly it appears to be established, science is not dogma.