Nature of Science

What is the Nature of Science?

Some teachers have asked how "The Nature of Science" differs from "The Scientific Method." However, in spite of its persistence in science textbooks and science standards, there actually is no one "scientific method." The "Nature of Science" (NoS), on the other hand, consists of those seldom-taught but very important features of working science, e.g., its realm and limits, its levels of uncertainty, its biases, its social aspects, and the reasons for its reliability. Popular ignorance of these features of science has lead to many misuses, misrepresentations and abuses of science. Science can only address natural phenomena (not supernatural phenomena, as such), and only natural explanations can be used in science. The fact that the most highly credible concepts in science today have survived such critical testing attests to the practical reliability of scientific knowledge and the processes of science that created that knowledge. Being done by people, science is also subject to any of the biases that its workers have, but its openness to critical science community oversight tends to expose those biases when they have been allowed to creep in. The elements of the nature of science are arguably more important than any particular set of steps supposedly used to solve a problem.