What subjects are included in the natural science cycle. What sciences are called natural

Natural sciences deal with matter, energy, their interconnection and transformation, as well as objectively measurable phenomena.

In ancient times, philosophers were engaged in this science. Later, the basis of this doctrine was developed by natural scientists of the past like Pascal, Newton, Lomonosov, Pirogov. They developed natural science.

The natural sciences differ from the humanities by the presence of an experiment that actively interacts with the object under study.

Humanities studies human activity in the field of spiritual, mental, cultural and social. There is a judgment that humanitarian sciences study the student himself as opposed to natural ones.

Basic natural knowledge

Basic natural knowledge includes:

Physical sciences:

• physics,
• engineering,
• about materials,
• chemistry;

• biology,
• medicine;

• geography,
• ecology,
• climatology,
• soil science,
• anthropology.

There are two other kinds: formal, social, and humanities.

Chemistry, biology, earth sciences, astronomy, physics are part of this knowledge. There are also overlapping disciplines such as biophysics, which takes into account different aspects of several subjects.

Until the 17th century, these disciplines were often referred to as "natural philosophy" due to the lack of experimentation and procedures used today.

Chemistry

Much of what defines modern civilization comes from advances in knowledge and technology brought about by the natural science of chemistry. For example, modern production in sufficient quantities of food is impossible without the Haber-Bosch process, which was developed during the First World War. This chemical process allows you to create ammonia fertilizer from atmospheric nitrogen, instead of relying on a biologically fixed source of nitrogen, such as cow dung, significantly increasing soil fertility and, as a result, the amount of food.

Within these broad categories of chemistry in countless fields of expertise, many of which have important influences on daily life... Chemists improve many products, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear and the materials we use to build our homes. Chemistry helps protect our environment and is looking for new sources of energy.

Biology and medicine

Thanks to advances in biology, especially in the 20th century, doctors were able to use a variety of drugs to treat many diseases that were previously fatal. Through research in biology and medicine, 19th century disasters such as plague and smallpox are greatly brought under control. Mortality of infants and mothers in industrial developed countries decreased sharply. Biological geneticists have even understood the individual code within each person.

Earth science

The science of obtaining and practical use knowledge about the earth has allowed humanity to extract great amount minerals and oil from crust, for the operation of engines of modern civilization and industry. Paleontology, knowledge of the earth, provides a window into the distant past, even further than humans existed. Through discoveries in geology and similar information in the natural sciences, scientists are able to better understand the history of the planet and predict changes that may occur in the future.

Astronomy and physics

In many ways, physics is a science that underlies both the natural sciences and offers some of the most unexpected discoveries of the 20th century. Among the most notable of these was the discovery that matter and energy are permanent and simply a transition from one state to another.

Physics is a natural science based on experiments, measurements and mathematical analysis in order to find quantitative physical laws for everything from the nanoworld to solar systems and galaxies of the macrocosm.

Based on research through observation and experimentation, the physical laws and theories that explain the functioning of natural forces like gravity, electromagnetism, or nuclear interactions.The discovery of new laws of the natural science of physics puts theoretical knowledge into the existing base and can also be used for practical applications such as equipment development, electronic devices, nuclear reactors etc.

Thanks to astronomy, scientists have discovered a wealth of information about the universe. In previous centuries, it was believed that the entire universe was just Milky Way... A series of debates and observations in the 20th century have shown that the universe is literally millions of times larger than previously thought.

Various types of sciences

Works of philosophers and natural scientists of the past and the following scientific revolution helped create a modern knowledge base.

Natural sciences are often called "hard science" due to the heavy use of objective data and quantitative methods that rely on numbers and mathematics. In contrast, social knowledge, like psychology, sociology and anthropology, rely more on qualitative assessments or alphanumeric data and tend to have fewer specific conclusions. Formal knowledge, including mathematics and statistics, is highly quantitative and does not usually involve the study of natural phenomena or experimentation.

Today actual problems development of the humanities and natural sciences have many parameters for solving the problems of being a person and society in the world, they gave.

Natural Science Knowledge System

Natural science is one of the components of the system of modern scientific knowledge, which also includes complexes of technical and humanitarian sciences. Natural science is an evolving system of ordered information about the laws of motion of matter.

The objects of study of individual natural sciences, the totality of which at the beginning of the XX century. was called natural history, from the time of their inception to the present day there have been and remain: matter, life, man, the Earth, the Universe. Respectively modern natural science groups the main natural sciences as follows:

• physics, chemistry, physical chemistry;
• biology, botany, zoology;
• anatomy, physiology, genetics (the doctrine of heredity);
• geology, mineralogy, paleontology, meteorology, physical geography;
• astronomy, cosmology, astrophysics, astrochemistry.

Of course, only the main natural ones are listed here, in fact modern natural science is a complex and ramified complex that includes hundreds of scientific disciplines. Physics alone unites a whole family of sciences (mechanics, thermodynamics, optics, electrodynamics, etc.). As the volume of scientific knowledge grew, individual sections of science acquired the status of scientific disciplines with their own conceptual apparatus, specific research methods, which often makes them difficult for specialists dealing with other sections of the same, say, physics.

Such differentiation in the natural sciences (as, incidentally, in science in general) is a natural and inevitable consequence of an increasingly narrowing specialization.

At the same time, counter processes also occur naturally in the development of science, in particular, natural science disciplines are formed and formed, as they often say, "at the junctions" of sciences: chemical physics, biochemistry, biophysics, biogeochemistry and many others. As a result, the boundaries that were once defined between individual scientific disciplines and their divisions become very conditional, mobile and, one might say, transparent.

These processes, leading, on the one hand, to a further increase in the number of scientific disciplines, but on the other, to their convergence and interpenetration, are one of the evidences of the integration of natural sciences, reflecting general trend v modern science.

It is here, perhaps, appropriate to turn to such a scientific discipline, which undoubtedly occupies a special place, as mathematics, which is a research tool and a universal language not only of the natural sciences, but also of many others - those in which quantitative laws can be seen.

Depending on the methods underlying the research, we can talk about the natural sciences:

• descriptive (exploring the evidence and the links between them);
• accurate (building mathematical models to express established facts and relationships, i.e. regularities);
• applied (using the systematics and models of descriptive and exact natural sciences for the development and transformation of nature).

Nevertheless, a common generic feature of all sciences that study nature and technology is conscious activity professional workers science aimed at describing, explaining and predicting the behavior of the objects under study and the nature of the phenomena under study. The humanities differ in that the explanation and prediction of phenomena (events) is based, as a rule, not on explanation, but on an understanding of reality.

This is the fundamental difference between the sciences that have objects of research that allow systematic observation, repeated experimental verification and reproducible experiments, and the sciences that study essentially unique, non-recurring situations, which, as a rule, do not allow an exact repetition of an experiment, conducting more than once at a time. either experiment.

Modern culture seeks to overcome the differentiation of cognition into many independent directions and disciplines, primarily the split between the natural sciences and the humanities, which is clearly evident in late XIX v. After all, the world is one in all its infinite diversity, therefore, relatively independent areas of a single system of human knowledge are organically interconnected; the difference here is transient, the unity is absolute.

Nowadays, the integration of natural science knowledge is clearly outlined, which manifests itself in many forms and becomes the most pronounced trend in its development. Increasingly, this tendency is also manifested in the interaction of the natural sciences with the humanities. This is evidenced by the advancement to the forefront of modern science of the principles of consistency, self-organization and global evolutionism, which open up the possibility of combining a wide variety of scientific knowledge into an integral and sequential system, united by the general laws of the evolution of objects of different nature.

There is every reason to believe that we are witnessing an increasing convergence and mutual integration of the natural and human sciences. This is confirmed by the widespread use in humanitarian research not only technical means and information technologies, used in natural and technical sciences, but also general scientific research methods developed in the process of development of natural science.

The subject of this course is concepts related to the forms of existence and movement of living and inanimate matter, while the laws that determine the course social phenomena are the subject of the humanities. However, it should be borne in mind that, no matter how different the natural and human sciences may differ, they have a common genus, which is the logic of science. It is the subordination of this logic that makes science a sphere of human activity aimed at identifying and theoretically systematizing objective knowledge about reality.

The natural-scientific picture of the world is created and modified by scientists of different nationalities, including convinced atheists and believers of various faiths and confessions. However, in its professional activity they all proceed from the fact that the world is material, that is, it exists objectively regardless of the people who study it. Note, however, that the process of cognition itself can influence the objects under study. material world and on how a person imagines them, depending on the level of development of the means of research. In addition, every scientist assumes that the world is fundamentally cognizable.

Process scientific knowledge Is a search for truth. However, the absolute truth in science is incomprehensible, and with each step along the path of knowledge, it is pushed further and deeper. Thus, at each stage of knowledge, scientists establish relative truth realizing that at the next stage knowledge will be achieved more accurate, more adequate to reality. And this is another evidence that the process of cognition is objective and inexhaustible.

Natural science

In the broadest and most correct sense, under the name E. should be understood the science of the structure of the universe and the laws governing it. The aspiration and goal of E. consists in a mechanical explanation of the structure of the cosmos in all its details, within the limits of the cognizable, by means and methods inherent in the exact sciences, that is, through observation, experience and mathematical calculation. Thus, everything transcendental is not included in the area E., for his philosophy revolves within a mechanical, therefore, strictly defined and delimited circle. From this point of view, all branches of E. represent 2 main departments or 2 main groups, namely:

I. General natural science explores such properties of bodies that are indifferent to all of them, and therefore can be called general. This includes mechanics, physics and chemistry, which are sufficiently characterized in further relevant articles. Computation (mathematics) and experience are the main techniques in these branches of knowledge.

II. Private natural history explores the forms, structure and movement characteristic exclusively of those diverse and countless bodies that we call natural, with the aim of explaining the phenomena they represent with the help of the laws and conclusions of general E. Calculation can be applied here too, but comparatively only in rare cases, although accuracy and here consists in the desire to reduce everything to computation and to the solution of problems in a synthetic way. The latter has already been achieved by one of the branches of private E., namely astronomy in its department called celestial mechanics, while physical astronomy can be developed mainly with the help of observation and experience (spectral analysis), as is characteristic of all branches of private E. Thus, the following sciences belong here: astronomy (see), mineralogy in the broad sense of this expression, i.e. with the inclusion of geology (see), botany and zoology. The three named sciences at the end are still named in most cases. natural history, this outdated expression should be eliminated or applied only to their purely descriptive part, which, in turn, received more rational names, depending on what is actually described: minerals, plants or animals. Each of the branches of a particular E. is subdivided into several departments, which have acquired independent significance, due to their vastness, and most importantly, due to the fact that the subjects studied have to be considered from different points of view, which, moreover, require unique techniques and methods. Each of the branches of private E. has a side morphological and dynamic. The task of morphology is to cognize the forms and structure of all natural bodies, the task of dynamics is to cognize those movements that, by their activity, caused the formation of these bodies and support their existence. Morphology, through precise descriptions and classifications, obtains conclusions that are considered laws or, rather, morphological rules. These rules can be more or less general, that is, for example, they apply to plants and animals, or only to one of the kingdoms of nature. General rules relative to all three kingdoms are not, and therefore botany and zoology constitute one common branch of E., called biology. Mineralogy, therefore, constitutes a more distinct teaching. Morphological laws or rules take on more and more particular character as we delve deeper into the study of the structure and shape of bodies. Thus, the presence of a bone skeleton is a law that applies only to vertebrates, the presence of seeds is a rule only for seed plants, etc. The dynamics of a particular E. consists of geology in the environment of inorganic nature and from physiology- in biology. In these industries, experience is mainly applied, and partly even computation. Thus, private natural sciences can be represented in the following classification:

The degree of development, as well as the properties of the subjects of study of the listed sciences, were the reason that, as already mentioned, the methods they used are very different. As a result, each of them breaks up into many separate specialties, which often represent significant integrity and independence. So, in physics - optics, acoustics, etc. are studied independently, although the movements that make up the essence of these phenomena are performed according to homogeneous laws. Among the private sciences, the most ancient of them, namely celestial mechanics, which until recently constituted almost all astronomy, has been reduced almost exclusively to mathematics, while the physical part of this science calls on chemical (spectral) analysis to help itself. The rest of the special sciences are expanding with such rapidity and have reached such an extraordinary expansion that their division into specialties is intensifying with every almost decade. So, in

Science is a sphere of human activity, which is aimed at the theoretical systematization of knowledge about reality, which is of an objective nature.

Science and scientific knowledge

The basis of any science is the collection of facts, their processing, systematization, as well as critical analysis, which allows you to build a causal relationship.

Hypotheses and theories, which are confirmed by facts or experiments, are formulated in the form of the laws of society or the laws of nature.

Scientific knowledge is a system of knowledge about the laws of society, nature, thinking. It is scientific knowledge that reflects the laws of the development of the world and constitutes its scientific picture.

Scientific knowledge arises from the comprehension of human activity and the surrounding reality. Scientific knowledge possesses different kinds reliability.

System of Sciences

In its subject of study, science is not homogeneous, it forms many separate systems of sciences. In the period of antiquity, all scientific knowledge was united by philosophy - that is, there was a single scientific system.

Over time, mathematics, medicine and astrology separated from philosophy. During the Renaissance, separate systems of sciences became chemistry and physics.

At the end of the 19th century, sociology, psychology and biology acquired the status of independent scientific knowledge. Conventionally, all sciences, according to their subject of study, can be divided into three large systems:

Social sciences (sociology, history, religious studies, social studies);

Engineering sciences (agronomy, mechanics, construction and architecture);

Natural sciences (biology, chemistry, physics)

Natural Sciences

Natural sciences are a system of sciences that study the influence of external natural phenomena on human life. The basis of the natural sciences is the relationship between the laws of nature and the laws that man has deduced in the course of his activities.

All natural sciences are based on natural science - a science that directly studies natural phenomena... The most significant contributions to the development of natural sciences were made by such great scientists as Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal and Mikhail Lomonosov.

Social Sciences

Social sciences are a system of sciences, the main subject of study of which is the study of the laws of the functioning of society, as well as its main components. The problems of society were of interest to mankind even in the period of antiquity.

It was then that questions began to be raised for the first time about what is the role of the individual in public life, what the state should be, what is needed in order to create a society of general prosperity.

The founders of modern social sciences are Rousseau, Locke and Hobbes. It was they who first formulated the philosophical basis for the development of society.

Research methods

In modern science, there are two main research methods: theoretical and empirical. Empirical method research is the accumulation of facts, observation of a phenomenon and the search for a logical connection between fact and phenomenon.

V modern world there are thousands of different sciences, educational disciplines, sections and other structural links. However, a special place among all is occupied by those that relate directly to a person and everything that surrounds him. It is a system of natural sciences. Of course, all other disciplines are also important. But it is this group that has the most ancient origins, and therefore of particular importance in the life of people.

What are natural sciences?

The answer to this question is simple. These are disciplines that study a person, his health, as well as the entire environment: soil, in general, space, nature, substances that make up all living and inanimate bodies, their transformations.

The study of natural sciences has been interesting to people since antiquity. How to get rid of a disease, what the body consists of from the inside, and what they are, as well as millions of similar questions - this is what has interested humanity from the very beginning of its origin. The answers to them are given by the disciplines under consideration.

Therefore, to the question of what the natural sciences are, the answer is unequivocal. These are disciplines that study nature and all living things.

Classification

There are several main groups that relate to natural sciences:

1. Chemical (analytical, organic, inorganic, quantum, organoelement compounds).
2. Biological (anatomy, physiology, botany, zoology, genetics).
3. chemistry, physical and mathematical sciences).
4. Earth sciences (astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, astrochemistry,
5. Science about earthly shells(hydrology, meteorology, mineralogy, paleontology, physical geography, geology).

Only basic natural sciences are presented here. However, it should be understood that each of them has its own subsections, industries, subsidiary and subsidiary disciplines. And if you combine all of them into a single whole, then you can get a whole natural complex of sciences, numbering in hundreds of units.

Moreover, it can be divided into three large groups disciplines:

• applied;
• descriptive;
• accurate.

Interaction of disciplines with each other

Of course, no discipline can exist in isolation from others. All of them are in close harmonious interaction with each other, forming a single complex. So, for example, knowledge of biology would be impossible without the use of technical means constructed on the basis of physics.

At the same time, it is impossible to study transformations within living beings without knowledge of chemistry, because each organism is a whole factory of reactions occurring at a colossal speed.

The relationship between the natural sciences has always been traced. Historically, the development of one of them entailed intensive growth and accumulation of knowledge in the other. As soon as new lands began to be developed, islands and land areas were discovered, both zoology and botany were immediately developed. After all, new habitats were inhabited (albeit not all) by previously unknown representatives of the human race. Thus, geography and biology are closely linked.

If we talk about astronomy and related disciplines, it is impossible not to note the fact that they developed thanks to scientific discoveries in the field of physics, chemistry. The design of the telescope has largely determined the success in this field.

There are a lot of similar examples. They all illustrate the close relationship between all natural disciplines that make up one huge group. Below we will consider the methods of natural sciences.

Research methods

Before dwelling on the research methods used by the sciences under consideration, it is necessary to designate the objects of their study. They are:

• human;
• life;
• Universe;
• matter;
• Earth.

Each of these objects has its own characteristics, and for their study it is necessary to select one or another method. Among those, as a rule, the following are distinguished:

1. Observation is one of the simplest, most effective and ancient ways to learn about the world.
2. Experiment is the foundation of the chemical sciences, most of the biological and physical disciplines. Allows you to get the result and draw a conclusion about
3. Comparison - this method is based on the use of historically accumulated knowledge on a particular issue and comparing them with the results obtained. Based on the analysis, a conclusion is made about the innovation, quality and other characteristics of the object.
4. Analysis. This method can include mathematical modeling, taxonomy, generalization, effectiveness. Most often it is the final after a number of other studies.
5. Measurement - used to assess the parameters of specific objects of animate and inanimate nature.

There are also the most recent ones, modern methods research that is used in physics, chemistry, medicine, biochemistry and genetic engineering, genetics and other important sciences. It:

• electron and laser microscopy;
• centrifugation;
• biochemical analysis;
• X-ray structural analysis;
• spectrometry;
• chromatography and others.

Of course, this is far from full list... There are many different adaptations for working in each area of ​​scientific knowledge. Everything is necessary individual approach, which means that a set of methods is being formed, apparatus and equipment are selected.

Modern problems of natural science

The main problems of natural sciences on the present stage development is the search for new information, the accumulation of a theoretical knowledge base in a more in-depth, rich format. Until the beginning of the 20th century the main problem the disciplines in question were opposed to the humanitarian branches.

However, today this obstacle is no longer relevant, since humanity has realized the importance of interdisciplinary integration in mastering knowledge about man, nature, space and other things.

Now the disciplines of the natural science cycle face a different task: how to preserve nature and protect it from the influence of man himself and his economic activity? And the problems here are the most pressing:

• acid rain;
• Greenhouse effect;
• destruction of the ozone layer;
• extinction of plant and animal species;
• air pollution and others.

Biology

In most cases, in response to the question "What are natural sciences?" one word comes to mind at once - biology. This is the opinion of most people who are not related to science. And this is absolutely correct opinion. After all, what, if not biology, directly and very closely connects nature and man?

All disciplines that make up this science are aimed at studying living systems, their interaction with each other and with environment... Therefore, it is quite normal that it is biology that is considered the founder of the natural sciences.

In addition, it is also one of the most ancient. After all, to himself, to his body, to the surrounding plants and animals, he was born together with a person. Genetics, medicine, botany, zoology, anatomy are closely related to the same discipline. All these branches make up biology as a whole. They also give us a complete picture of nature, and about man, and about all living systems and organisms.

Chemistry and physics

These science, fundamental in the development of knowledge about bodies, substances and natural phenomena, are no less ancient than biology. They also developed along with the development of man, his becoming social environment... The main tasks of these sciences is the study of all bodies of inanimate and living nature from the point of view of the processes occurring in them, their relationship with the environment.

So, physics considers natural phenomena, mechanisms and causes of their occurrence. Chemistry is based on the knowledge of substances and their interconversion into each other.

That's what natural sciences are.

Earth sciences

And finally, let's list the disciplines that allow you to learn more about our home, whose name is Earth. These include:

• geology;
• meteorology;
• climatology;
• geodesy;
• hydrochemistry;
• cartography;
• mineralogy;
• seismology;
• soil science;
• paleontology;
• tectonics and others.

In total, there are about 35 different disciplines. Together they study our planet, its structure, properties and features, which is so necessary for the life of people and the development of the economy.