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T2: What is science?


When we hear the word ‘science’ first thing comes in mind is physics, mathematics, labs... but none of these truly embodies ‘science’. And if we want to come out with a specific definition of science then again we will end with different ones.
 Through this course, César Tomé's paper proposes a definition of the word science that has drawn my attention:
In the first place, he defines science as a «systematic search for knowledge whose validity does not depend on a specific individual or epoch and which is open to anyone who wants to verify their findings or reproduce their experiments".
That means that knowledge is the target of all scientists, whatever their research field, but that doesn’t mean that any investigation that leads to knowledge is necessarily science.  Science it's only that process which rely on systematic research that anyone could verify its results at any time.
Then, he added that "This research is framed within a systemic and organized skepticism that starts from the basis that our knowledge is based on models and that all hypotheses are false as long as the contrary is not proven"
Meaning that every scientist should be scientific skeptics, by subjecting any kinds of claims to a systematic investigation using some the empirical research.
in economic sciences which is my research field , scientific approach is fundamental at all levels , and we subject all topics to a systematic investigation using some type of the scientific method.

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  1. Any academic discipline should be possible to be considered "science", and in doing it, research topic selection and methodological standards improve. At least this is the point of these readings.

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