Science

Science in the broadest sense refers to any system of objective knowledge. In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such research. more...

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This article focuses on the latter sense of the word.

Fields of science are commonly classified along two major lines:

Natural sciences, which study natural phenomena; Social sciences, which study human behavior and societies;

Whether mathematics is a science is a matter of perspective. It is similar to other sciences in that it is a careful, systematic study of an area of knowledge — specifically, it focuses on a priori knowledge. Mathematics as a whole is vital to the sciences — indeed, major advances in mathematics have often led to major advances in other sciences. Certain aspects of mathematics are indispensable for the formation of hypotheses, theories, and laws, both in discovering and describing how things work (natural sciences) and how people think and act (social sciences).

Science as defined above is sometimes termed pure science in order to differentiate it from applied science, the latter being the application of scientific research to human needs.

Etymology

The word science is derived from the Latin word scientia for knowledge, which in turn comes from scio - I know. The Indo-European root means to discern or to separate, akin to Sanskrit chyati, he cuts off, Greek schizein, to split, Latin scindere, to split. From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, science or scientia meant any systematic or exact recorded knowledge. Science therefore had the same sort of very broad meaning that philosophy had at that time. In other languages, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, the word corresponding to science also carries this meaning.

From classical times until the advent of the modern era, "philosophy" was roughly divided into natural philosophy and moral philosophy. In the 1800s, the term natural philosophy gradually gave way to the term natural science. Natural science was gradually specialized to its current domain, which typically includes the physical sciences and biological sciences. The social sciences, inheriting portions of the realm of moral philosophy, are currently also included under the auspices of science to the extent that these disciplines use empirical methods. As currently understood, moral philosophy still retains the study of ethics, regarded as a branch of philosophy and one of the three classical normative sciences.

Sciences versus Science: the plural of the term is often used but is difficult to distinguish in usage without referring to a complex etymology like the above. Therefore, it might be helpful to distinguish "sciences" generally as relating to "whole bodies of knowledge" that are separated in some way, as by discipline, subject(s), or most generally, by references meaning without regard to time.

Read more at Wikipedia.org