What+Is+Science+and+the+Answers+to+a+Plethora+of+Questions+not+yet+Posed-+An+Painfully+Awkward+1st+Draft

What Is Science?
To understand science it is helpful to understand what actions it represents and why we do those actions. The first part of that question is relatively simple: science is some kind of quest for knowledge, with a direct correlation to technology. But why is this pursuit so natural to human beings? To answer this somewhat more enigmatic query we must take it way back. Some people attribute it to the agrarian revolution, some the advent of tools. No matter the cause, there was a point in the development of our species when we ceased to rely on our physical strength or speed and began to use our intelligence for survival.

What humans now had access to could be referred to as ‘second hand information’. Previously, the only information a human had about the world was based on whatever sensory data was available and how a set of biological instincts interpreted it. This new kind of knowledge was ‘second hand’ in that it might not be a function of sensory information, but always derived from it. With a greater understanding of herd movements and grazing patterns, we became better hunters. We began to learn more about plants, how and where they could be gathered. Eventually, we learned enough to sew our own seeds, and started the agrarian revolution.

I could continue on this tangent indefinitely – or at least till year 2009. Since that critical tipping point, through a better understanding of our world and universe, mankind has further insured our own survival without notable physical evolution. But somewhere along the way, the quest for survival through knowledge was simplified to just ‘the quest for knowledge’. And with the advancement of culture, it became a recognized institution and force in this world, thereto referred to as science.

Obviously, the life threatening world our ancestors lived in is gone, but intelligence has continued to be valued by society. Partially because of its importance and status in cultures, as well as the increased complexity of our understanding of the natural world, organizations and societies were established to further science. These information gathering societies have had a number of different functions and social standings.

The first organization I feel compelled to mention is one that is not often considered an ally of ‘science’: the Church. Remember, however, that we are not talking about scientific communities. These are purveyors of information, people who are expected to know the answers that common folk do not. And the clergy, however unscientific it may be by today’s standards, devoted itself to deriving new knowledge from what they previously knew about the world. Unfortunately, their worldview was not particularly scientific and suffered from a lack of empirical evidence, relying on dogmatic religious traditions.

The church, namely the Roman Catholic Church, remained the undisputed authority of knowledge until a new school of thought emerged, pioneered by some of the first modern scientists. Familiar names like Galileo and Newton. This gave rise to an independent scientific community, supported through a combination of government and political interests as well as a budding university network. The network of colleges and institutes of learning are relatively unassuming. They contain a culture of academia so interesting that it deserves a study of its own, but the vastly more interesting factor here is government.

The chief motivator of government’s interest in science is war. War encourages technology, as clearly evidenced by examining the available technologies before and after major conflicts. The United States Civil War began with custom, handmade non-rifled guns and ended with rifled, mass produced weapons with interchangeable parts. World War 2’s recent technological advances are still having a profound effect on our world, most notably the atomic bombs and the development of rockets and space flight.

Governments start wars, and war advances technology, but what does science have to do with this progression? On further examination of the relationship of science and technology, it becomes clear that without technology, science shall exist and advance (with some logistical limitations). Without science, however, technology cannot progress. Although it is not unheard of, we very rarely invent a device or technology without fully understanding the scientific principles behind it.

Science is necessary for the technologies that are advantageous in war. So governments that have a vested interest in war set up organizations like DARPA, or contract to universities and private corporations to further science so that they can benefit from the technologies it creates.

Which is the chicken and which is the egg? Does science give rise to advances in technology? Or is our constant need for new technologies forcing science to advance? To continue the analytical line of reasoning; I believe that science and technology are not too different variables, but the same variable in different equations. They are too completely codependent to be anything but two separate applications of the same principle. This concept manifests itself in the modern world, but creating a gross over-simplification makes it easier to understand.

Chimpanzees use stalks of grass or twigs to fish ants out of their tunnels. This is a technology (I use that term loosely), but it’s also a scientific understanding to know that the ants have an extended tunnel network that can be accessed with a tool. So was the scientific advance necessitated by a need for the technology to get food and sustenance? Or was the discovery independent and the technology was created a convenient bonus that allowed the chimp to eat?

Unfortunately, I don’t believe that an empirical answer to these questions is readily available. But by the issues that they bring up, they do suggest that the relationship between science and technology is so intertwined that one could not be had without the other, as different as they may be.

This is a very complicated explanation of what science means to the modern world, but with a prompt as simple as “What is this science?” it’s far too tempting to oversimplify the answer into a philosophical dissertation on the essence of one thing or the true nature of another. Originally, science was a simple Darwinian technique. Mental evolution as opposed to physical. It has since evolved into something hardly recognizable, a complex network of motives and societal desires that have been intertwined into cultures and societies. In the beginning it was nothing more than the path to survival with the least resistance.