What does natural science mean. What is natural sciences? Natural science methods

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What is natural sciences? Methods natural sciences

IN modern world there are thousands of different sciences, educational disciplines, sections and other structural units. but special place among all occupy those that relate directly to a person and everything that surrounds him. This is the system of natural sciences. Of course, all other disciplines are also important. But it is this group that has the most ancient origin, and therefore of particular importance in people's lives.

The answer to this question is simple. These are disciplines that study a person, his health, as well as the entire environment: soil, atmosphere, the Earth as a whole, space, nature, substances that make up all living and non-living bodies, their transformations.

The study of natural sciences has been interesting to people since antiquity. How to get rid of the disease, what the body consists of from the inside, why the stars shine and what they are, as well as millions of similar questions - this is what interested humanity from the very beginning of its origin. The disciplines under consideration give answers to them.

Therefore, to the question of what the natural sciences are, the answer is unequivocal. These are disciplines that study nature and all living things.

There are several main groups that relate to the natural sciences:

  1. Chemical (analytical, organic, inorganic, quantum, physico-colloid chemistry, chemistry of organoelement compounds).
  2. Biological (anatomy, physiology, botany, zoology, genetics).
  3. Physical (physics, physical chemistry, physical and mathematical sciences).
  4. Earth sciences (astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, astrochemistry, space biology).
  5. Earth shell sciences (hydrology, meteorology, mineralogy, paleontology, physical geography, geology).

Only the basic natural sciences are represented here. However, it should be understood that each of them has its own subsections, branches, subsidiary and child disciplines. And if you combine all of them into a single whole, then you can get a whole natural complex of sciences, numbering in hundreds of units.

At the same time, it can be divided into three large groups of disciplines:

Interaction of disciplines among themselves

Of course, no discipline can exist in isolation from others. All of them are in close harmonious interaction with each other, forming a single complex. So, for example, knowledge of biology would be impossible without the use of technical means constructed on the basis of physics.

At the same time, transformations inside living beings cannot be studied without knowledge of chemistry, because each organism is a whole factory of reactions occurring at an enormous speed.

The relationship of the natural sciences has always been traced. Historically, the development of one of them entailed intensive growth and accumulation of knowledge in the other. As soon as new lands began to be developed, islands, land areas were discovered, both zoology and botany immediately developed. After all, new habitats were inhabited (albeit not all) by previously unknown representatives of the human race. Thus, geography and biology were closely linked together.

If we talk about astronomy and related disciplines, it is impossible not to note the fact that they developed thanks to scientific discoveries in physics, chemistry. The design of the telescope largely determined the success in this area.

There are many such examples. All of them illustrate the close relationship between all natural disciplines that make up one huge group. Below we consider the methods of natural sciences.

Before dwelling on the research methods used by the sciences in question, it is necessary to identify the objects of their study. They are:

Each of these objects has its own characteristics, and for their study it is necessary to select one or another method. Among these, as a rule, the following are distinguished:

  1. Observation is one of the simplest, most effective and ancient ways to know the world.
  2. Experiment is the basis of the chemical sciences, most of the biological and physical disciplines. Allows you to get the result and on it to draw a conclusion about the theoretical basis.
  3. Comparison - this method is based on the use of historically accumulated knowledge on a particular issue and comparing them with the results obtained. Based on the analysis, a conclusion is made about the innovation, quality and other characteristics of the object.
  4. Analysis. This method may include mathematical modeling, systematics, generalization, effectiveness. Most often it is final after a number of other studies.
  5. Measurement - used to assess the parameters of specific objects of living and inanimate nature.

There are also the latest modern methods research that is used in physics, chemistry, medicine, biochemistry and genetic engineering, genetics and other important sciences. This:

Of course, this is far from full list. There are many different devices for working in every field of scientific knowledge. Everything is needed individual approach, which means that their own set of methods is being formed, equipment and equipment are being selected.

Modern problems of natural science

The main problems of the natural sciences on present stage development is the search for new information, the accumulation of a theoretical knowledge base in a more in-depth, rich format. Before the beginning of the 20th century main problem of the disciplines under consideration was opposition to the humanities.

However, today this obstacle is no longer relevant, since humanity has realized the importance of interdisciplinary integration in mastering knowledge about man, nature, space and other things.

Now the disciplines of the natural science cycle face a different task: how to preserve nature and protect it from the influence of man himself and his economic activity? And here are the most pressing issues:

  • acid rain;
  • the greenhouse effect;
  • destruction of the ozone layer;
  • extinction of plant and animal species;
  • air pollution and others.

In most cases, in response to the question "What is the natural sciences?" One word comes to mind: biology. This is the opinion of most people who are not connected with science. And this is absolutely correct opinion. After all, what, if not biology, directly and very closely links nature and man?

All disciplines that make up this science are aimed at studying living systems, their interaction with each other and with the environment. Therefore, it is quite normal that biology is considered the founder of the natural sciences.

In addition, it is also one of the oldest. After all, people's interest in themselves, their bodies, surrounding plants and animals originated with man. Genetics, medicine, botany, zoology, and anatomy are closely related to the same discipline. All these branches make up biology as a whole. They also give us a complete picture of nature, and of man, and of all living systems and organisms.

These fundamental sciences in the development of knowledge about bodies, substances and natural phenomena are no less ancient than biology. They also developed along with the development of man, his formation in the social environment. The main tasks of these sciences are the study of all bodies of inanimate and living nature from the point of view of the processes occurring in them, their connection with the environment.

So, physics considers natural phenomena, mechanisms and causes of their occurrence. Chemistry is based on the knowledge of substances and their mutual transformations into each other.

That's what the natural sciences are.

And finally, we list the disciplines that allow you to learn more about our home, whose name is Earth. These include:

In total there are about 35 different disciplines. Together they study our planet, its structure, properties and features, which is so necessary for the life of people and the development of the economy.

Natural Sciences. What sciences are called natural?

Natural sciences are called sciences about nature, that is, about nature. Inanimate nature and its development are studied by astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry, meteorology, volcanology, seismology, oceanology, geophysics, astrophysics, geochemistry, and a number of others. Nature studied by biological sciences (paleontology studies extinct organisms, taxonomy - species and their classification, arachnology - spiders, ornithology - birds, entomology - insects).

The natural sciences include those that study nature and all its manifestations, that is, it is physics, biology, chemistry, geography, ecology, astronomy.

Opposite to the natural sciences will be the humanities, which study a person, his activity, consciousness and manifestation in various areas. These include history, psychology and others.

Natural is a word that, by itself and by its presence, tells us that something must happen in nature. Well, science, of course, is that field of activity, which, all this business, thoroughly and scrupulously, studies and reveals general, but at the same time fundamental, regularities.

The natural sciences deal with matter, energy, their relationship and transformation, as well as with objectively measurable phenomena.

In ancient times, philosophers were engaged in this science. Later, the basis of this doctrine was developed by natural scientists of the past such as Pascal, Newton, Lomonosov, Pirogov. They developed natural science.

The natural sciences differ from the humanities in the presence of an experiment consisting in active interaction with the object under study.

Humanitarian knowledge studies human activity in the field of spiritual, mental, cultural and social. There is a judgment that the humanities study the student himself, in contrast to the natural sciences.

Basic natural knowledge

Basic natural knowledge includes:

Physical Sciences:

  • physics,
  • engineering,
  • about the materials
  • chemistry;
  • biology,
  • the medicine;
  • geography,
  • ecology,
  • climatology,
  • soil science,
  • anthropology.

There are two other types: formal, social and human sciences.

Chemistry, biology, earth sciences, astronomy, physics are part of this knowledge. There are also cross-cutting disciplines, such as biophysics, which take into account different aspects of several subjects.

Until the 17th century, these disciplines were often referred to as "natural philosophy" due to the lack of experiments and procedures used today.

Chemistry

Much of what defines modern civilization comes from advances in knowledge and technology brought about by the natural science of chemistry. For example, modern production in sufficient quantities of food is impossible without the Haber-Bosch process, which was developed during the First World War. This chemical process makes it possible to create ammonia fertilizer from atmospheric nitrogen, instead of relying on a biologically fixed source of nitrogen, such as cow dung, greatly increasing soil fertility and, as a result, food supply.

Within these broad categories of chemistry, in countless fields of knowledge, many of which have an important influence on everyday life. Chemists improve many products, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear to the materials we build our homes with. Chemistry helps protect our environment and looking for new sources of energy.

Biology and medicine

Thanks to advances in biology, especially in the 20th century, physicians have been able to use various medicines to treat many diseases that were previously fatal. Through research in biology and medicine, the disasters of the 19th century, such as plague and smallpox, have been greatly brought under control. Infant and maternal mortality in industrialized countries has declined sharply. Biological geneticists have even understood the individual code within each individual.

earth science

The science that studies the receipt and practical use knowledge of the earth allowed mankind to extract a huge amount of minerals and oil from earth's crust, to operate the engines of modern civilization and industry. Paleontology, the knowledge of the earth, provides a window into the distant past, even further than humans existed. Through discoveries in geology and similar information in the natural sciences, scientists are able to better understand the history of the planet and predict changes that may occur in the future.

Astronomy and physics

In many ways, physics is the science that underlies both the natural sciences and offers some of the most unexpected discoveries of the 20th century. Among the most notable of these was the discovery that matter and energy are permanent and the mere transition from one state to another.

Physics is a natural science based on experiments, measurements and mathematical analysis with the aim of finding quantitative physical laws for everything from the nanoworld to solar systems and galaxies of the macrocosm.

Based on research through observation and experiment, physical laws and theories are explored that explain the functioning of natural forces such as gravity, electromagnetism or nuclear interactions.The discovery of new laws of the natural science of physics puts theoretical knowledge into the existing base and can also be used for practical applications such as the development of equipment, electronic devices, nuclear reactors etc.

Thanks to astronomy, scientists have discovered a huge amount of information about the universe. In previous centuries, it was thought that the entire universe was just the Milky Way. A series of debates and observations in the 20th century showed that the universe is literally millions of times larger than previously thought.

Various kinds of sciences

The work of philosophers and naturalists of the past and the ensuing scientific revolution helped create the modern knowledge base.

The natural sciences are often referred to as "hard science" due to their heavy use of objective data and quantitative methods that rely on numbers and mathematics. In contrast, social knowledge, like psychology, sociology, and anthropology, is more reliant on qualitative assessments or alphanumeric data and tend to have fewer specific findings. Formal types of knowledge, including mathematics and statistics, are highly quantitative in nature and usually do not include the study natural phenomena or experiments.

Today actual problems The development of the humanities and natural sciences have many parameters for solving the problems of being a person and society in the world, they gave.

sciences studying the properties of nature and natural formations. The use of terms natural, technical, fundamental, etc. to the areas of human activity is rather conditional, since each of them has a fundamental component (studying problems on the border of our knowledge and ignorance), an applied component (studying the problems of applying acquired knowledge in practice), a natural science component (studying problems that arise or exist independently from our will). These terms are, so to speak, diatropic, i.e. describe only the core - the most feature or part of an object.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition

NATURAL SCIENCES

acquired the rights of citizenship since the 18th century. the name for the totality of all sciences dealing with the study of nature. The first researchers of nature (natural philosophers) included, each in his own way, all of nature in the circle of his mental activity. The progressive development of the natural sciences and their deepening into research has led to the dismemberment, which has not yet ended, of the unified science of nature into its separate branches - depending on the subject of research or according to the principle of division of labor. The natural sciences owe their authority, on the one hand, to scientific accuracy and consistency, and on the other hand, to their practical significance as a means of conquering nature. The main areas of the natural sciences - matter, life, man, the Earth, the Universe - allow us to group them as follows: 1) physics, chemistry, physical chemistry; 2) biology, botany, zoology; 3) anatomy, physiology, the doctrine of origin and development, the doctrine of heredity; 4) geology, mineralogy, paleontology, meteorology, geography (physical); 5) astronomy together with astrophysics and astrochemistry. Mathematics, according to a number of natural philosophers, does not belong to the natural sciences, but is a decisive tool for their thinking. In addition, among the natural sciences, depending on the method, there is the following difference: the descriptive sciences are content with the study of factual data and their relationships, which they generalize into rules and laws; exact natural sciences clothe facts and relationships in mathematical form; however, this distinction is made inconsistently. The pure science of nature is limited scientific research, applied science (medicine, agriculture and forestry, and technology in general) uses it to master and transform nature. Next to the sciences of nature are the sciences of the spirit, and philosophy unites both of them into a single science, they act as particular sciences; cf. Physical picture of the world.

1. Natural sciences - concept and subject of study 3

2. History of the birth of natural science 3

3. Patterns and features of the development of natural science 6

4. Classification of natural sciences 7

5. Basic methods of natural science 9

Literature

    Arutsev A.A., Ermolaev B.V., et al. Concepts modern natural science. - M., 1999.

    Matyukhin S.I., Frolenkov K.Yu. Concepts of modern natural science. - Orlov, 1999.

        1. Natural sciences - the concept and subject of study

Natural science is the natural sciences or the totality of sciences about nature. At the present stage of development, all sciences are divided into public or humanitarian, and natural.

The subject of study of social sciences is human society and the laws of its development, as well as phenomena, one way or another connected with human activity.

The subject of study of the natural sciences is the Nature surrounding us, that is, various types of matter, the forms and laws of their movement, their connections. The system of natural sciences, taken in their mutual connection as a whole, forms the basis of one of the main areas scientific knowledge about the World - natural sciences.

The immediate or immediate goal of natural science is knowledge of objective Truth , entity search phenomena of nature, the formulation of the main laws of nature which makes it possible to foresee or create new phenomena. The ultimate goal of natural science is practical use of learned laws , forces and substances of Nature (production-applied side of knowledge).

Natural science, therefore, is the natural scientific foundation of the philosophical understanding of Nature and Man as part of this Nature, theoretical basis industry and Agriculture, technology and medicine.

      1. 2. History of the birth of natural science

At the origins modern science are the ancient Greeks. More ancient knowledge has come down to us only in the form of fragments. They are unsystematic, naive and alien to us in spirit. The Greeks were the first to invent proof. Neither in Egypt, nor in Mesopotamia, nor in China such a concept existed. Maybe because all these civilizations were based on tyranny and unconditional submission to authorities. In such circumstances, even the very idea of ​​reasonable evidence seems seditious.

In Athens for the first time ever world history a republic emerged. Despite the fact that it flourished in the labor of slaves, in Ancient Greece conditions were created under which a free exchange of opinions became possible, and this led to an unprecedented flourishing of the sciences.

In the Middle Ages, the need for a rational knowledge of nature completely died out along with attempts to comprehend the destiny of man within the framework of various religious denominations. For almost ten centuries, religion has given exhaustive answers to all questions of life that were not subject to criticism or even discussion.

The writings of Euclid, the author of the geometry that is now studied in all schools, were translated into Latin language and became known in Europe only in the XII century. However, at that time they were perceived simply as a set of witty rules that had to be memorized - they were so alien to the spirit of medieval Europe, accustomed to believe, and not to seek the roots of Truth. But the volume of knowledge grew rapidly, and they could no longer be reconciled with the direction of thought of medieval minds.

The end of the Middle Ages is usually associated with the discovery of America in 1492. Some point even more the exact date: December 13, 1250 - the day when King Frederick II of Hohenstaufen died in the castle of Florentino near Lucera. Of course, one should not take such dates seriously, but several such dates taken together create an undoubted feeling of the authenticity of the turning point that occurred in the minds of people at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. In history, this period is called the Renaissance. obeying internal laws development and for no apparent reason, Europe in just two centuries revived the rudiments of ancient knowledge, which had been forgotten for more than ten centuries and later received the name scientific.

During the Renaissance in the minds of people there was a turn from the desire to realize their place in the world to attempts to understand its rational structure without reference to miracles and divine revelation. At first, the coup was aristocratic in nature, but the invention of printing spread it to all strata of society. The essence of the turning point is the liberation from the pressure of authorities and the transition from the medieval faith to the knowledge of modern times.

The Church opposed the new trends in every possible way, she strictly judged philosophers who recognized that there are things true from the point of view of philosophy, but false from the point of view of faith. But the collapsed dam of faith could no longer be repaired, and the liberated spirit began to look for new ways for its development.

Already in the 13th century, the English philosopher Roger Bacon wrote: “There is a natural and imperfect experience that is not aware of its power and is not aware of its methods: it is used by artisans, not scientists ... Above all speculative knowledge and arts is the ability to produce experiments, and this science is the queen of sciences...

Philosophers must know that their science is powerless unless they apply powerful mathematics to it... It is impossible to distinguish sophism from proof without verifying the conclusion by experience and application.”

In 1440, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) wrote the book On Scientific Ignorance, in which he insisted that all knowledge about nature must be written down in numbers, and all experiments on it should be carried out with scales in hand.

However, the adoption of new views was slow. Arabic numerals, for example, came into general use already in the 10th century, but even in the 16th century, calculations were carried out everywhere not on paper, but with the help of special tokens, even less perfect than clerical accounts.

It is customary to begin the real history of natural science with Galileo and Newton. According to the same tradition, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is considered the founder of experimental physics, and Isaac Newton (1643-1727) the founder of theoretical physics. Of course, in their time (see historical reference) there was no such division of the single science of physics into two parts, there was not even physics itself - it was called natural philosophy. But such a division has a deep meaning: it helps to understand the features scientific method and, in essence, is equivalent to the division of science into experience and mathematics, which was formulated by Roger Bacon.

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