CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE: ORIGIN, CHARACTERISTICS AND PHILOSOPHY - SCIENCE - 2025

The c contemporanea ience as a concept can refer to two different but closely related aspects. On the one hand, it indicates the time frame in which the different scientific investigations have been carried out. In this case, it is the science developed during the last decades, in which there has been a great advance in all disciplines.

The other dimension that this concept covers is that referred to the philosophy that moves science itself. Starting in the early 20th century, the scientific paradigm changed, as did the method. For example, when Heisenberg discovers the indeterminacy principle, he first proposes to see that nature can be discontinuous and not fixed.

The origin of this new way of seeing science is linked to the appearance of researchers such as Albert Einstein or Karl Popper. They changed the old conception of science as something mechanistic, and proposed a new one in which spontaneity and uncertainty fit.

Origin

Since the term "contemporary science" itself can be approached from two different points of view - the temporal and the philosophical - its origins can also be treated in the same way. Both are closely related so they could hardly have appeared independently.

Temporal origin

Faced with the empiricism that reigned until then, in the first third of the twentieth century (becoming stronger in the second half of the century) new scientific disciplines appeared that cannot be worked on like the old ones.

Paradoxically, the technical improvements carried more uncertainty than certainty. Although they greatly expanded the phenomena that could be investigated, they also ended up raising more questions than answers.

Among the most prominent authors in that origin are Edwin Hubble or Albert Einstein. The first is the author of the Big Bang Theory which, due to its own characteristics, did not allow a mechanistic and empirical confirmation.

As for Einstein, his Theory of Relativity already indicates this paradigm shift only by name.

In short, it is a demystification of the traditional scientific method, taking its place a more critical attitude. It was no longer possible to limit everything to controlled experiments, but they had to accept that there were as many methods as there were problems analyzed.

From that moment on, science was no longer seen as a deterministic discipline and became probabilistic. As some authors point out, for the first time science becomes aware of its own limits.

Philosophical origin

The great leap in the philosophy of science occurred in the middle of the 20th century. It is then that three different philosophers made public their theories about scientific knowledge and the way in which it is acquired.

The first of them, Karl Popper, affirmed that all scientific knowledge accumulates and is progressive, but it can also be falsified. The second was Thomas Kuhn, who denies that progressive character and appeals to social needs as the engine of discoveries.

Finally, Paul Feyerabend sees scientific knowledge as anarchic and inconsistent.

characteristics

Indeterminism

It was Heisenberg who first spoke about the indeterminacy principle. For the first time, science argues that nature can be discontinuous and not something fixed that is easy to study.

This was opposed to scientific determinism, which thought that all the specificities of any phenomenon could be described.

Chance as a fundamental part

Contemporary science ends up recognizing that there are no rules when it comes to making a discovery. In this way it is almost assimilated to the arts, in which different paths can be followed to reach the goal.

Is relative

With the emergence of contemporary science, we stop talking about absolute terms. On the one hand, emphasis is placed on how the human factor affects when conducting experiments. On the other hand, subjectivity is being given importance when analyzing the results.

Emergence of ethics

In the twentieth century, several scientific disciplines appeared that made the research community have to consider the ethical consequences of their findings.

Matters such as genetics, biology and others often cause an ethical and philosophical conflict in the conception of science and its use.

In this way, the idea of ​​contemporary science would be understood as referring to "how" instead of "what". It is not so much about discoveries and objects of study as about the new paradigms and ways of understanding science that lead to it.

Philosophy

At the same time that the scientific method was changing in practical research, various philosophers also appeared who contributed their thinking to contemporary science.

There are several points on which these new theories revolved, but the main one is the concept of "truth" and how to get there.

Karl Popper

One of the great authors in scientific philosophy is Karl Popper. Its central thesis is refutationism, according to which only the statements that can be refuted are scientific.

Also highlights the concept of falsifiability, which faced logical positivism. For Popper, when an observable statement is shown to be false, it can be deduced that the universal proposition is also false.

The author also objected to inductive reasoning, as it can lead to wrong conclusions. For example, if we see a white duck, we could deduce that they are all that color. The point is that, even if they were 100 of the same color, that conclusion would not be adequate either.

For Popper, this method only reaches probable conclusions, not certain. This leads to many different probable theories, but it adds nothing to scientific knowledge.

For knowledge to be consolidated, it is necessary to discard theories through deductive reasoning, not inductive.

Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Kuhn also played a great role in contemporary philosophy of science. In his work he tried to answer questions related to this discipline and his conclusions have had a lot of influence in recent decades.

For this author, science is not only a neutral contrast between reality and theories. In this there is debate, tensions and dialogue between the supporters of the different hypotheses. In fact, many will continue to defend their position even after it is refuted, to a greater extent when there are interests of some kind.

On the other hand, Kuhn stated that there is progress only in the phases of normal science. The philosopher refutes those who think that there is continuous progress throughout all of history. According to him, it is scientific revolutions that favor progress, marking new beginnings.

Some later philosophers picked up these thoughts and radicalized them, giving rise to radical relativism. This current establishes that it is impossible to know which theory is true, since everything depends on the point of view.

Physicalism

Physicalism is another of the philosophical currents of science. For its supporters, reality can only be explained by physical studies. Everything that cannot be physically grasped would not exist.

References

1. Ramírez Valdes, Grisel. The complexity of science: How the philosophy of

   contemporary science "detaches" from the concept of truth. Recovered from node50.org

2. Escuelapedia. Contemporary science. Obtained schoolpedia.com
3. Ryerson University. Contemporary Science. Retrieved from ryerson.ca
4. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sir Karl Popper. Retrieved from britannica.com
5. TheFamousPeople. Thomas Kuhn Biography. Retrieved from thefamouspeople.com
6. Marcel, AJ, & Bisiach, E. Consciousness in contemporary science. Retrieved from psycnet.apa.org