Mario Bunge, The Characteristics of Science
Very briefly, based on the text in which Mario Bunge describes the characteristics of science, scientific thought, and research.
Mario Bunge: Science, or scientific knowledge, is imbued with a host of characteristics, which can be summarized as follows:
• a) It starts from the facts and always returns to them. Science attempts to describe the facts as they are.
• b) It transcends the facts. It discards facts, produces new ones, and explains them.
• c) It is analytical. Scientific research addresses circumscribed problems, one by one, and attempts to break everything down into elements.
• d) It is specialized. Specialization has not prevented the formulation of interdisciplinary fields; on the contrary, it tends to narrow the scientist's vision.
• e) It is clear and precise. Problems must be formulated clearly; science defends most of its concepts, creates artificial languages, and always seeks to measure and record phenomena.
• f) It is communicable. Scientific language communicates information to anyone who has been trained to understand it. • g) It is verifiable. Verifiability is the essence of scientific knowledge; if it were not so, it could not be said that scientists seek to achieve objective knowledge.
• h) It is methodical. That is, scientific research is not erratic, but planned.
• i) It is systematic. The systematic nature of scientific knowledge is what makes it rational.
• j) It is general. It places singular facts in general patterns, particular statements in broad schemes.
• k) It is legal. It seeks laws (of nature and culture) and applies them.
• l) It is explanatory. It attempts to explain facts in terms of laws, and laws in terms of principles.
• m) It is predictive. It transcends the mass of experiential facts, imagining what the past could have been like and what the future might be like.
• n) It is open. It recognizes no a priori barriers that limit knowledge.
• o) It is useful. The usefulness of science is a consequence of its objectivity; without necessarily aiming to achieve applicable results, research provides them in the short and long term.