Science and Ontology

 Science and Ontology              

The phenomena are the events observed and studied by the Natural Sciences. They present us with empirical data about what happens in the natural world, supplying the objective information on the characteristics of things: what they are and what they are made of.

That information is perceived by our eyesight, our hearing, etc., but it can also be sensed by way of scientific instruments especially built in order to capture and do the measuring. They employ numerical ratings, and the numbers in these registers form combinations to describe all of the physical Universe, unifying all things with one mathematical language that performs very well as a guide to all classes of equivalent hypotheses that represent and explain the same phenomenon. 

cartesian

A hypothesis is an abstraction conceived by a scientist, but for any hypothesis-interpretation to become true science it is necessary first to analyze and describe the phenomenon, and then to measure and calculate the results, to relate a theory that is suitable for that hypothesis and to build a mathematical formula that represents all these quantifications (but not necessarily in that order). When a "hypothesis" has survived a sufficient number of tests it can be promoted to "theory" (seemingly consistent with the other scientifically established theories).

In order to observe and to theorize about the mechanics of a natural phenomenon, a scientist proposes an experiment that evidences his argument, keeping every step of the experience properly documented at all times. The scientist works towards a theory and must develop a protocol in order to verify its accuracy.

And sometimes it is not enough to organize a logical theory about the naturally occurring events that could be simply observed, it is also necessary to do controlled scientific experiments that "disturb" Nature with experimentations, in order to measure the results of many situations.

In some cases, it is required that a scientist would first imagine a workable solution and then create a feasible hypothesis, based on the data already obtained. The hypothesis and the theory share the same kind of logical thinking that is tied to numerical results.

Based on the interpretation and the efforts to justify the data and results expressed in numerical terms previously obtained from systematically compiled observations, the new scientific theories are confirmed and refined. 

Nevertheless, any theory must conform to the objective requirement that the observed (or soon to be observed) data should relate entirely to the proposed theory.

More recent theories emerge to replace, supplement or substantiate the unanimity of the global scientific community on a current paradigm (dominant theory).  In most recent discoveries, some new experiments had their initial protocols elaborated and repeated many times, permitting a scientific groundwork for the benefit of the theories studied by the scientists who are working on the problem at present.

There has been a lot of interchanges, contributions, and criticism; and also manifestations of support or dispute reviews on the mathematical miscalculations and a few exclamations when facing an innovative scientific concept.

The scientists’ social network combined with the empirical observations and analytical reasoning form the epistemological system of the modern scientific knowledge body.

Eventually, a novelty theory can completely replace the previous one at the moment when it becomes fully accepted by the consensus of the scientific community that acknowledges the recently arrived theory as a descriptive improvement, or mathematically more precise, or even perceptively more accurate than its predecessor.

Science is provisional, that is, one insight remains valid until a new one is demonstrated, having as a consequence a scientific paradigm amendment.

Without truly exposing the procedures to everybody else’s criticism, how do we know which experiments are valid and impartially conducted? The scientific theories concluded by the researchers are based on their own data interpretations and on related facts and events that are always part of a (new?) model of how everything works. An isolated scientist cannot do science by himself.

The observations, the conclusions and the consensus obtained from the correlations with the fostered theory are at the heart of Science, providing an interpretative meaning of the data/observations in the natural world within the context of the proposed model.

After surviving the most rigorous standards of scrutiny exerted by the scientific community, the new theory is then raised, with the approval of scientists worldwide, to the condition of "sound and solid".

When lacking another theory or better explanation for the findings, it will ultimately take the title of Paradigm in the absence of other competing theories.