All the sciences were triggered by human curiosity (Tillery, Enger, & Ross 2011, p. 12). The main role of science is generation and theoretical systematization of knowledge. One can say that the purpose of science depends on whether science is natural or humanitarian. Natural sciences like physics or chemistry give the schematic representation of the physical world and its diversity. The humanities – philosophy, literature – are focused on the social knowledge about the man and society.
Thus, the humanities and natural sciences tend to the systematic understanding of the physical reality. The differences in these branches of science are more fundamental. The main purpose of natural sciences is to describe the physical world as it is, while humanities investigate the alternatively possible world. The purpose of any social science is to understand the possible tendencies in the social world improvement. One can generally say that the purpose of science is the attainment of truth, while the scientific research is the method of attainment of truth.
One knows that the consequences of scientific-technical progress can be serious and not always favorable for the humanity. A scientist should be aware of his social responsibility because their research always has the potential hazard. A scientist should foresee the possible undesirable effect from the discovered information and warn the public about it. The scientific-technical progress not only provokes but creates the contradictions in the modern world.
A scientist has to remember that the progress was created for the humanity rather than for itself. The power of knowledge can open the sources of unprecedented might for the human and every scientist must remember it.
Data validity is no less important than the aforementioned ethical issue (Tillery et al., 2011, p. 17). The data must be not only gathered and processed, but verified and tested as well. A scientist has to remember about the other people and the possibility of misleading them. For example, the investigator’s negligent work with the investigational drug can even lead to the fatal outcome.
One of the main important problems of the scientific ethics is the problem of plagiarism. With the development of information dissemination technologies, it is easy to copy the new idea or scientific discovery. The significance of some scientists can also be overstated. A scientist must understand the socio-cultural principles of science and society while considering the ethical maxims. The true researcher always implies the righteousness, equity, moral rectitude, and loyalty to the truth. They must view the truth even if their own opinion does not coincide with the opinion of their colleagues. The scientific thought must always be unbiased (Tillery et al., 2011, p. 21).
The construction of scientific knowledge is a complicated and long-term process. Every scientific statement begins with observing some kind of object or occurrence. The next steps are the explanation proposing, experimental investigation, and results estimation. If the experimental results coincide with the proposed theory, the statement is true. The important problem is the evaluation of the scientific character of knowledge and separation it from other kinds of knowledge. There are many criteria for making the distinctions between scientific knowledge and pseudo-scientific (Tillery et al., 2011, p. 18).
The methodology of science separating includes the principles of rationality, verification, and falsification. The principle of rationality is one of the main features of the knowledge validity; it orients the researcher towards the specified scientific guidelines. According to the verification principle, a certain judgment matters if it can be examined empirically. The falsification principle says that every theory becomes scientific when it can be disproved.
To draw the conclusion, one can say that the knowledge creation is the result of human activity. It is the multistage process which contains not only the scientific side but many issues concerning the ethics, social responsibility, and pseudo-science.
Reference List
Tillery, B.W., Enger E.D.,& Ross F.C. (2011). Integrated Science. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing.