Modern Science History

Science[a][1]:58[2] is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.[b]

Contemporary science is typically subdivided into the natural sciences, which study the material universe; the social sciences, which study people and societies; and the formal sciences, which study logic and mathematics. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations.[3] Disciplines which use science, like engineering and medicine, may also be considered to be applied sciences.[4]

From classical antiquity through the 19th century, science as a type of knowledge was more closely linked to philosophy than it is now, and in the Western world the

In particular, it was the type of knowledge which people can communicate to each other and share. For example, knowledge about the working of natural things was gathered long before recorded history and led to the development of complex abstract thought. This is shown by the construction of complex calendars, techniques for making poisonous plants edible, and buildings such as the Pyramids. However, no consistent conscientious distinction was made between knowledge of such things, which are true in every community, and other types of communal knowledge, such as mythologies and legal systems.

Antiquity
See also: Nature (philosophy)

Maize, known in some English-speaking countries as corn, is a large grain plant domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric

For this reason, it is claimed these men were the first philosophers in the strict sense, and also the first people to clearly distinguish "nature" and "convention."[17]: p.209 Science was therefore distinguished as the knowledge of nature and things which are true for every community, and the name of the specialized pursuit of such knowledge was philosophy — the realm of the first philosopher-physicists. They were mainly speculators or theorists, particularly interested in astronomy. In contrast, trying to use knowledge of nature to imitate nature (artifice or technology, Greek technē) was seen by classical scientists as a more appropriate interest for lower class artisans.[18] A clear-cut distinction between formal (eon) and empirical science (doxa) was made by the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides (fl. late sixth or early fifth century BCE). Although his work Peri Physeos (On Nature) is a poem, it may be viewed as an epistemological essay on method in natural science. Parmenides' ἐὸν may refer to a formal system or calculus which can describe nature more precisely than natural languages. "Physis" may be identical to