Читать книгу Scientific research basics in the transportation process - A. Yu. Timkova - Страница 3

The concept of «science» has several basic meanings. Firstly, by science (Greek episteme, lat. scientia) we understand the sphere of human activity aimed at the development and theoretical schematization of objective knowledge about reality. In the second meaning, science acts as a result of this activity – a system of acquired scientific knowledge. Thirdly, the term «science» is used to refer to individual branches of scientific knowledge. Fourthly, science can be regarded as a branch of culture that did not exist at all times and not among all peoples. In the course of historical development, science has become the productive force of society and the most important social institution.

The immediate goals of science are obtaining knowledge about the world around us, predicting the processes and phenomena of reality on the basis of the laws it discovers. In a broad sense, its goal is a theoretical reflection of reality. Science was created to directly reveal the essential aspects of all phenomena of nature, society and thinking.

Not all knowledge can be considered scientific. It is impossible to recognize as scientific the knowledge that a person receives only on the basis of simple observation. This knowledge plays an important role in people’s lives, but they do not reveal the essence of the phenomena, the relationship between them, which would make it possible to explain why this phenomenon occurs one way or another, and to predict its further development.

The correctness of scientific knowledge is determined not only by logic, but, above all, by its mandatory verification in practice. Scientific knowledge is fundamentally different from blind faith, from the unquestioning recognition of this or that position as true, without any logical substantiation and practical verification. Revealing the regular connections of reality, science expresses them in abstract concepts and schemes that strictly correspond to this reality.