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Outline of science


The following outline is provided as a topical overview of science:

Science – systematic effort of acquiring knowledge—through observation and experimentation coupled with logic and reasoning to find out what can be proved or not proved—and the knowledge thus acquired. The word "science" comes from the Latin word "scientia" meaning knowledge. A practitioner of science is called a "scientist". Modern science respects objective logical reasoning, and follows a set of core procedures or rules in order to determine the nature and underlying natural laws of the universe and everything in it. Some scientists do not know of the rules themselves, but follow them through research policies. These procedures are known as the scientific method.

Scientific method – body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on observable, empirical, measurable evidence, and subject to laws of reasoning, both deductive and inductive.

Branches of science – divisions within science with respect to the entity or system concerned, which typically embodies its own terminology and nomenclature.

Natural science – major branch of science, that tries to explain and predict nature's phenomena, based on empirical evidence. In natural science, hypotheses must be verified scientifically to be regarded as scientific theory. Validity, accuracy, and social mechanisms ensuring quality control, such as peer review and repeatability of findings, are amongst the criteria and methods used for this purpose. Natural science can be broken into 2 main branches: biology, and physical science. Each of these branches, and all of their sub-branches, are referred to as natural sciences.

Formal science – branches of knowledge that are concerned with formal systems, such as: logic, mathematics, theoretical computer science, information theory, Game theory, systems theory, decision theory, statistics, and some aspects of linguistics. Unlike other sciences, the formal sciences are not concerned with the validity of theories based on observations in the real world, but instead with the properties of formal systems based on definitions and rules.


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