Science and Scientific Method

Abstract

The roots of science go back to the contributions of Greek philosophers some 2,500 years ago. However, science as it is known today and its great power and remarkable influence over humanity emerged in the 16th century as a consequence of the Renaissance revolution that radically transformed the objects, methods and objectives of knowledge of nature. Objects became natural phenomena; the methods, disciplined cooperative research, and a set of objective, systematic, rational, and critical procedures that have been generically called the "scientific method"; and the objectives, the construction of a factual, verifiable and explanatory body of knowledge. What essentially characterizes science as a rationally and critically grounded body of knowledge is the method by which that knowledge is constructed. This article reviews the foundations of the scientific approach to knowledge generation and characterizes the scientific method.