The Definition of Science

A field can be defined as a sphere of knowledge focused on a particular subject, activity or thought. Science is a field that utilizes the human imagination, the unbiased testing of hypotheses, and paradigms in order to understand the natural world.

Overall, the imagination is one of the bases for science, as scientists make use of it in order to create concepts for hypotheses and experiments to test in reality. In “The Reach of Imagination”, Jacob Bronowski defines the imagination as the specifically human cognitive ability to envision images, words, and symbols inside one’s mind at will (7). All fields are powered by the human imagination and its capability to come up with new concepts that can further knowledge; this not only includes science, but also all of the branches of the social sciences and the humanities as well. However, science is distinguished from other disciplines because imagined ideas must be tested out in real life in some sort of physical manner. As an illustration, Bronowski points out the example of the differences between the knowledge of science and the knowledge of literature: “In science, the imaginary experiment is tested by confronting it with physical experience; and in literature, the imaginative conception is tested by confronting it with human experience” (6). Literature, a branch of the humanities, deals with the imagination by putting one’s personal thoughts into writing and in turn, those who read the composition are able to enter the world the author has created in his or her mind via a personal, emotional experience. This is the opposite of science, where imagined ideas for experimentations do not involve human emotions or other intangible notions. Instead, this particular sphere of knowled...

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...and standards for scientific practice. That commitment and the apparent consensus it produces are prerequisites for normal science” (Kuhn 71). In the end, if paradigms are not followed, then the foundation of science will be destroyed. One of the main purposes of science is to discover the truth about the natural world and how it works—if everyone began disagreeing about other’s scientific data and continually argue about what is the right way to conduct experiments, then the truth will never come into being because of all the conflict.

Taken as a whole, in the field of science the ideas created by the human imagination are what fuel the basis for scientific hypotheses. In turn, these hypotheses are then tested in reality following paradigms and utilizing unbiased analysis with the overall goal to try to understand the functions of the natural world and its past.