"Science is cumulative" is a progressive and linear philosophical approach to knowledge that has been shed by science thanks to its research throughout history.
The concept basically refers to the search for solutions to the problems of society and its need to solve the questions of human existence. To do this, scientists have left a series of platforms for knowledge that have been complemented in a linear way by successive generations of researchers.
Historians specialized in science have shown that scientific knowledge is a process of cultural acquisition where it is built on previous advances. To quote Isaac Newton, each new generation will be able to see further by standing only on the shoulders of the scientific giants predecessors.
Many philosophers and theorists assure that the more discoveries are made and the more is learned from them, progressively it will be possible to have a better understanding of the universe where one lives.
Cumulative science aims for progress
This concept began to take hold during the age of the enlightenment, where free thought was introduced in all fields of society to give all previous beliefs answers based on scientific reasoning.
Empiricists and rationalists, like Descartes, claimed that the use of appropriate methods for the search for knowledge would guarantee the discovery and justification of new truths.
Other more positivists joined this concept, ensuring that science by accumulating empirically certified truths promoted the progress of society.
Shortly after, other trends such as Marxism and pragmatism also supported in some way this motion that the search for human knowledge as a process of quasi-organic growth of culture.
Currently this concept is accepted as one of the models to explain the nature of science and its purpose. The following examples clearly illustrate this model:
Thanks to the number notation and basic arithmetic invented by the Babylonians around 2000 BC, Greeks and Arabs were able to develop geometry and algebra respectively.
This knowledge allowed Newton and other Europeans to invent calculus and mechanics in the 17th century; then you have mathematics as it is taught and used today.
Without Mendel's proposals on genetics and its laws, it would not have been continued and discovered that genes were part of a chromosome. From that point it was possible to determine that the gene is a molecule in DNA. And this in turn helped to give strength to the theory of natural selection supported by studies on genetic changes in the evolution of species.
In addition, it was known that magnetic charges and static electricity existed from the observation of atmospheric phenomena such as lightning.
Thanks to experiments to try to collect this energy, the Leyden capacitor was created in 1745, which managed to store static electricity.
Next, Benjamin Franklin defined the existence of positive and negative charges, then he experimented with resistors. As a result, the battery was invented, the effect of electric currents was discovered, and electrical circuits were experimented with.
On the other hand, the laws of the OHM and the ampere and units such as the joule were formulated. Without these progressive discoveries, it would not have been possible to develop Tesla coils, Edison's light bulb, the telegraph, radio, diodes and triodes for electronic circuits, television, computers, mobile phones.
From obscurantism to enlightenment
During the Middle Ages, knowledge about life, existence and the universe was very limited. There were no communities of scientists as in the last 400 years or so.
The church dominated and controlled the direction in which human thought should always find the answers to the problems and questions of everyday life. Any approach slightly different from this was immediately disqualified, rejected, and condemned by the church.
Consequently scientific progress stalled for about 1000 years in what was called the dark ages. The search for knowledge was truncated perhaps due to laziness, ignorance or simple fear of being branded a heretic by the authorities. Nothing could challenge or contradict the "word of God" in the Bible.
The closest to scientific knowledge that was known were the texts of the time of the great Greek philosophers like Aristotle, which the church half accepted. Based on these theories was the extent of what was known about the universe, nature and the human being.
At the time of maritime explorations, the world's first beliefs began to be challenged, but based on lived experience and observation, in other words, empirical knowledge. What gave place and weight to the concept of reason or reasoning.
In this way came the scientific revolutions between the 16th and 18th centuries that began to divert attention away from the church, as the centralized entity of absolute knowledge, towards scientific observation and scientific reasoning, as is done today.
Thus, in this age of "enlightenment" for the human being, new discoveries and theories were reached that completely challenged the perception of the universe and nature as it was known.
Among them, the heliocentric theory by Copernicus stood out. The movement of the planets by Kepler. Galileo's telescope, Newton's law of gravity, and Harvey's blood circulation. This era is known as the Scientific Revolution.
Thanks to this, the approach to the search for knowledge, the answers to life's questions, and the solution of everyday problems changed dramatically. As a result, communities of scientists and the famous scientific method were born.
References
- Niiniluoto, Ilkka (2012). Scientific Progress. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Revisited 2015). Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Plato.stanford.edu.
- Abstract Nonsense (2006). Science is Cumulative. abstractnonsense.wordpress.com, David Zeigler (2012). Evolution and the Cumulative Nature of Science. Evolution: Education and Outreach, Volume 5, Issue 4 (p 585-588). Springerlink. link.springer.com.
- Dain Hayton. Science as Cumulative Cultural Evolution. Historian of Science. dhayton.haverford.edu.
- Wrestling with Philosophy (2012). Is Scientific Progress Cumulative or Revolutionary - Notes and thoughts on Thomas Kuhn's “The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolution”.missiontotransition.blogspot.com.
- Michael Shermer (2011). Science is progressive. Science, skepticism and humor. naukas.com.
- Bird, Alexander (2004) Thomas Kuhn. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Revisites2013). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). plate.stanford.edu.