Goals of science

{{philosophyscience}}
'''Science''' is a body of [[knowledge]] accumulated through the use of the [[scientific method]].  There are multiple possible goals for doing [[science]].  For many scientists, the satisfaction of curiosity about nature and the desire to share what they have learned about cause and effect relationships in nature are the primary goals.  Other scientists wish to improve the material welfare of [[human]]ity, to contribute to the security of their own societies, or to increase their own personal wealth. So long as they make claims for [[truth]] based on the scientific method, their goals are irrelevant. 

In the process of using the scientific method, scientists often detect sufficient regularity in nature to make [[prediction]]s even before they can explain their underlying causes.  One of the earliest uses of [[science]] may be found in attempts by ancient [[culture]]s to predict the seasons in order to figure out when to plant crops and when to harvest.  Another early application of science was to predict the location of [[planet]]s &mdash; wanderers &mdash; in the night sky at a given time.  By observing regular patterns of motion, early [[Astronomy|astronomers]] tried to build models of how the stuff in the sky actually moved, and then further refined their models when predictions were shown to be correct or incorrect.

==Dogmatism?==
One of the gross misconceptions about science is that its findings, like [[religious]] [[dogma]], are fixed. In fact, scientists are constantly revising their conclusions to account for new data and new ways of understanding the world around us. This progress may be seen in the progression from the [[Ptolemy|Ptolemaic]] system of [[geocentrism]] to the [[Nicolaus Copernicus|Copernican]] [[heliocentric]] system, which was better able to predict the locations of planets; to [[Kepler]]'s ideas about [[astrophysics]], which refined the orbits from circles to ellipses; to [[Isaac Newton|Newton]], who finally explained the mechanisms that made them orbit; to [[Albert Einstein|Einstein]] and [[relativity]], which accounted for the precession of perihelion of [[Mercury]].  Each so-called "[[paradigm shift]]" in science allows for better predictions about how the natural world works.

==Atheism?==
Another misconception held by some deeply religious people is that science is trying to explain away [[God]]. While scientists are not necessarily biased against religion—there are practising and respected scientists who are also people of faith—scientists at work see the world through the lens of [[methodological naturalism]], which assumes that [[supernatural]] phenomena are not influencing their investigations.  

The [[Origins debate|debate over evolution]] has been an important flash-point for conflicts over the alleged desire on the part of scientists to write God out of the picture. This has been most well publicized in the [[United States]], with examples ranging from the [[Scopes trial]] to the case of [[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District]]. However, a better understanding of how scientists approach understanding the process of [[evolution]], and how the scientific method works in a more general sense, may help to show how science is not simply setting out to do away with God.

The goal of evolution is not to say "[[Creation myths|creation stories]] are wrong" but rather to understand what [[life]] came before &mdash; how we got from raw chemicals to single-celled organisms to the diversity of life that we see today.  Understanding how evolution works helps scientists to predict what [[fossil]]s can be found in a particular strata of rock &mdash; for instance, that one will not find early [[mammal]]s in a rock strata below one containing a dimetrodon.  

[[File:Darwin's Orchids (Angraecum sesquipedale) (7637504818).jpg|thumb|right|165px|''Angraecum sesquipedale'']]
[[File:The famous Darwin's Moth - Morgan's sphinx moth (Xanthopan morganii praedicta), Vohimana reserve, Madagascar (14033314711).jpg|thumb|right|165px|''Xanthopan morganii'']][[Charles Darwin|Darwin]] made some predictions about animals after seeing the "battle" that was fought between flowers and their pollinators.  Flowers ''want'' to get pollen attached to whatever creatures feed on their nectar. In fact, this is not just a ''want'' — it is how plants are able to reproduce themselves. In this "battle", the flowers that were most successful were those that got the most pollen on their pollinators. Likewise, the animals ''want'' (or, rather, need) to get more food (nectar) more easily. 

When Darwin saw the ''Angraecum sesquipedale'' with a 20–35&nbsp;cm distance between the opening of the flower and where the nectar was stored, he theorized there must be a moth with a tongue that was that length too, even though he never saw it.  
{{cquote|"(''A. sesquipetale'' has) nectaries 11 and a half inches long, with only the lower inch and a half filled with very sweet nectar [...] it is, however, surprising, that any insect should be able to reach the nectar: our English sphinxes have probosces as long as their bodies; but in Madagascar there must be moths with probosces capable of extension to a length of between 10 and 12 inches!" (Darwin, 1862:197-198)}}
Forty years later, a moth was found that fit the description &mdash; ''Xanthopan morganii''.<ref>[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/deep-jungle-new-frontiers/video-darwins-moth/1374/ Deep Jungle: New Frontiers Video: Darwin's Moth]</ref> This was not a prediction that was made, based on the text of any [[holy book]], or a recourse to [[supernatural]] phenomena. Rather, it was only possible through the systematic observation of the natural world and an understanding of the natural history of the [[species]] involved.<ref>http://www.naturalhistorymagazine.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymagazine.com/0305/0305_feature.html</ref>

There is no inherent [[atheism]] in science.  Instead there is an understanding that any [[worldview]] that can predict ''anything'' &mdash; or rather ''everything'' &mdash; has no predictive power at all. Such approaches are not useful tools for examining how the world works and the interactions between different things &mdash; be it [[atom]]s and [[molecule]]s, [[cell]]s and organisms, or [[star]]s and galaxies. Only predictions that can be [[falsifiability|proven wrong]] are useful and advance our understanding of how the [[universe]] works.

==Curiosity==
There is also point of view, that the main goal of science is satisfaction of curiosity of researchers, and attempts to submit science to any other goals leads to its profanation and degradation. This may lead to the following definition:

:''Science is way of satisfaction of the personal curiosity of researchers, based on concepts having all the 6 properties below.''

*'''1. Applicability''': Each concept has certain limited range of validity, distinguishable from the empty set.

*'''2. Verifiability''': In the terms of the already accepted concepts, some specific experiment with some specific result, that confirms the concept, can be described.

*'''3. Refutability''': In the terms of the concept, some specific experiment with some specific result, that negates the concept, can be described.

*'''4. Self-consistency''': No internal contradictions of the concept are known.

*'''5. Principle of correspondence''': If the range of validity of a new concept intersects the range of validity of another already accepted concept, then, the new concept either reproduces the results of the old concept, or indicates the way to refute it. (For example, the estimate of the range of validity of the old concept may be wrong.)

*'''6. Pluralism''': Mutually-contradictive concepts may coexist; if two concepts satisfying 1-5 have some common range of validity, then, in this range, the simplest of them has priority.

These axioms are suggested to be considered as core of the science that remains through all the [[scientific revolution]]s; the governmental support of the research based on a concept that does not satisfy at least one of the axioms above should be qualified as [[fraud]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Science]]

Categories: Science