Robert B. Fischer (b.

1920)
chemist
 definitions

James B. Conant (1893 – 1978) - Chemist
 The activity of people who work in laboratories and whose
discoveries have made possible modern industry and
medicine.
Norman Campbell (1880-1949) – Physicist
and philosopher
 Science as consisting of two forms
1. Science is a body of useful and practical knowledge and a
method of obtaining it;
2. Science is a pure intellectual activity
 definitions

Leonard K. Nash (1918 - 2013) - Chemist
 Science is a way of looking at the world.
Eugene P. Wigner (1902 - 1995) – Physicist
(Nobel 1963)
 Our science – our store of knowledge of natural
phenomena.
 definitions

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) –
Biologist, "Darwin's Bulldog"
 Science is organized common sense.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - Physicist
 The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of
everyday thinking.
 Richard H. Bube (b. 1927) – Solid-state physicist
 Science is “knowledge of the natural world obtained by
sense interaction with that world.”
 definitions

 John G. Kemeny (1926 - 1992) – Mathematician and
computer scientist, created the BASIC programming
language
 Science as “all knowledge collected by means of the
scientific method.”
 “scientific” – a cycle of induction, deduction, verification and
eternal search for improvement of theories which are only
tentatively held.
 James B. Conant
 Science is an interconnected series of concepts and conceptual
schemes that have developed as a result of experimentation and
observation and are fruitful of further experimentation and
observations.
 definitions

 Abram Cornelius Benjamin (1897 - 1968) –
Philosopher of science
 Science is that mode of inquiry which attempts to
arrive at knowledge of the world by the method of
observation and by the method of confirmed
hypothesis on what is given in observation.
 William Cecil Dampier (1867-1952) – Scientist and
science historian
 Science is the ordered knowledge of natural phenomena and
the rational study of the relations between the concepts in
which these phenomena are expressed.
 definitions

 Warren Weaver (1894 - 1978) - Mathematician
 Science is not technology, nor does it consist of
technological gadgetry. Science is not black-magic, nor is it
a universal snake oil to cure all diseases.
 It is “a way of solving problems, not all problems, but …
those in which the predominant factors are subject to the
basic laws of logic and are usually quantitative in
character.”
 Science is not an arrogant dictator in the whole arena of life
but rather a democratic companion of philosophy, of art, of
religion and of other valid alternative approaches to
reality.”
 definitions

 Jacob Bronowski (1908 - 1974) – Mathematician and
historian of science
 Science is the organization of our knowledge in such a
way that it commands more of the hidden potential in
nature.
 Fischer’s definition

 Science is the body of knowledge obtained by methods
based upon observation.
 It is consistent and more specific than Latin: scientia
 Incorporates the meaning of German: wissenschaft

 no restriction to the realm of nature or of matter covered

 Essentiality of observation
 Includes the social and behavioral science
 “methods” and “observation” – stress upon the dynamic
nature of the knowledge that is science
 Implications of the def.

1. The practice of science is a human activity.
2. There is an inherent limitation of science.
3. There is an authority in science.
4. There is a building upon the authority.

William Whewell coined the term “scientist” (1834)

 Assumptions in doing
SCIENCE

1. There is order to the universe.
2. The human mind is capable of
comprehending this order.
3. If conditions are the same, the results
of any study will be the same.