Information Science

Published 7 March 2009

Conceptualizacion of Science

Emilia Curras
University Professor
AHDI. Honorary Member 2003. IIS Fellow
Medalla de Oro. Foundation Prof. Kaula
SEI, Honorary Professor

Science as a discipline, as one of the components of human learning, has been widely studied, among many, by Federico Mayor, Vernadsky, Eloy Terrón, Gutiérrez Ríos, Henri Poincaré, and other of various convictions.

A dictionary might define science as a body of methodologically formed and ordered doctrine constituting a particular branch of human knowledge to include definite knowledge of treat things by their principles and causes. We should also remember that science is a set of acquired of a particular discipline.

Morcillo Corvetto, refers to science as experimental verification of knowledge from theoretical models.

From these definitions, we see that science is completely separate from philosophy as a result of its now tremendous development in recent times. It has even been thought that science can exist independently without support form other manifestations of reason or thought.

On the other hand, if we return to the origins of Western civilization, to the ideas of the Greek philosophers, science is considered as a mean of achieving wisdom, and consequently, truth, depending on the philosophy in question. Through science, we use reason to know and understand natural phenomena and occurrences. History is different, for here, we now facts, natural and real, by their succession through time.

Philosophy, which is understood to be the desire to acquire wisdom is a fundamental part of the human being, and so is science. An innate impulse in man drives him to discover the unknown. This impulse promotes his development, not only from that primitive humanoid to the human being in his present state of evolution, or what this could be in the future, but also in his development from child to adult during the first few years of his life. Of particular interest in this respect is the book by Professor Arntz “Information and the Emergence of Man: Boundaries in Evolution”.

Robert K. Merton states that this curiosity or desire to find out and learn is so strong that it does not matter who makes a discovery or an invention, as sooner or later this would have taken place in any event. If this were so, the person who is makes the discovery should not be considered as an individual unto himself but as a social being, as part of a mechanism with a specific mission directed towards a predetermined end. Perhaps he is both or perhaps neither one or the other. The level of mankind´s development is still not high enough for us to solve this problem.

Science as a discipline within human learning as a whole is self-generated and self-generating. It acquires a universal dimension with interdisciplinary, intradisciplinary and transdisciplinary components.

Science implies a methodology that leads to research where in a logical and coherent methods is applied. Hence, today, when a logical and coherent is employed in the study of any branch of human knowledge, this is referred to as making science. We thus speak of historical sciences, juridical sciences, medical sciences, … chemical sciences… and even technological sciences. In this case science loses its particular meaning with respect to the knowledge of natural phenomena, and acquires a holistic character, likewise embracing “intranatural phenomena”. Including those of the macrosphere, the microsphere and the nossphere.

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