Science
From Textus Receptus
Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is, in its broadest sense, any systematic knowledge that is capable of resulting in a correct prediction (i.e. falsifiability in Karl Popper's sense) or reliable outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique, technology, or practice.[]
In today's more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, and to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research.[] sup>[]</sup> It is a "systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the world and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories".[] This article focuses upon science in this more restricted sense, sometimes called experimental science, and also gives some broader historical context leading up to the modern understanding of the word "science."
From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, "science" had more-or-less the same sort of very broad meaning in English that "philosophy" had at that time. By the early 19th century, "natural philosophy" (which eventually evolved into what is today called "natural science") had begun to separate from "philosophy" in general. In many cases, "science" continued to stand for reliable knowledge about any topic, in the same way it is still used in the broad sense in modern terms such as library science, political science, and computer science. In the more narrow sense of "science" today, as natural philosophy became linked to an expanding set of well-defined laws (beginning with Galileo's laws, Kepler's laws, and Newton's laws for motion), it became more common to refer to natural philosophy as "natural science". Over the course of the 19th century, the word "science" become increasingly associated mainly with the disciplined study of the natural world (that is, the non-human world). This sometimes left the study of human thought and society in a linguistic limbo, which has today been resolved by classifying these areas of study as the social sciences.
