Natural science

[3] Systematic data collection, including discovery science, succeeded natural history, which emerged in the 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and so on.

[5] Philosophers of science have suggested several criteria, including Karl Popper's controversial falsifiability criterion, to help them differentiate scientific endeavors from non-scientific ones.

Validity, accuracy, and quality control, such as peer review and reproducibility of findings, are amongst the most respected criteria in today's global scientific community.

The biological fields of botany, zoology, and medicine date back to early periods of civilization, while microbiology was introduced in the 17th century with the invention of the microscope.

Some key developments in biology were the discovery of genetics, evolution through natural selection, the germ theory of disease, and the application of the techniques of chemistry and physics at the level of the cell or organic molecule.

Although mining and precious stones have been human interests throughout the history of civilization, the development of the related sciences of economic geology and mineralogy did not occur until the 18th century.

Observational research entails a combination of space exploration, primarily through robotic spacecraft missions utilizing remote sensing, and comparative experimental work conducted in Earth-based laboratories.

Major conferences are held annually, and numerous peer reviewed journals cater to the diverse research interests in planetary science.

The formulation of theories about the governing laws of the universe has been central to the study of physics from very early on, with philosophy gradually yielding to systematic, quantitative experimental testing and observation as the source of verification.

While the study of celestial features and phenomena can be traced back to antiquity, the scientific methodology of this field began to develop in the middle of the 17th century.

By the 19th century, astronomy had developed into formal science, with the introduction of instruments such as the spectroscope and photography, along with much-improved telescopes and the creation of professional observatories.

This field studies the interactions of physical, chemical, geological, and biological components of the environment, with particular regard to the effect of human activities and the impact on biodiversity and sustainability.

Many of the most pressing scientific problems that are faced today are due to the limitations of the materials that are available, and, as a result, breakthroughs in this field are likely to have a significant impact on the future of technology.

[8] While the writings show an interest in astronomy, mathematics, and other aspects of the physical world, the ultimate aim of inquiry about nature's workings was, in all cases, religious or mythological, not scientific.

[9] A tradition of scientific inquiry also emerged in Ancient China, where Taoist alchemists and philosophers experimented with elixirs to extend life and cure ailments.

[12] Using these principles, Chinese philosophers and doctors explored human anatomy, characterizing organs as predominantly yin or yang, and understood the relationship between the pulse, the heart, and the flow of blood in the body centuries before it became accepted in the West.

[13] Little evidence survives of how Ancient Indian cultures around the Indus River understood nature, but some of their perspectives may be reflected in the Vedas, a set of sacred Hindu texts.

[16] Later Socratic and Platonic thought focused on ethics, morals, and art and did not attempt an investigation of the physical world; Plato criticized pre-Socratic thinkers as materialists and anti-religionists.

[23] Still, inspired by his work, Ancient Roman philosophers of the early 1st century AD, including Lucretius, Seneca and Pliny the Elder, wrote treatises that dealt with the rules of the natural world in varying degrees of depth.

[25] Early medieval philosophers including Macrobius, Calcidius and Martianus Capella also examined the physical world, largely from a cosmological and cosmographical perspective, putting forth theories on the arrangement of celestial bodies and the heavens, which were posited as being composed of aether.

[26] Aristotle's works on natural philosophy continued to be translated and studied amid the rise of the Byzantine Empire and Abbasid Caliphate.

[29][30] A revival in mathematics and science took place during the time of the Abbasid Caliphate from the 9th century onward, when Muslim scholars expanded upon Greek and Indian natural philosophy.

[34] European inventions such as the horseshoe, horse collar and crop rotation allowed for rapid population growth, eventually giving way to urbanization and the foundation of schools connected to monasteries and cathedrals in modern-day France and England.

[41] Roger Bacon, an English friar and philosopher, wrote that natural science dealt with "a principle of motion and rest, as in the parts of the elements of fire, air, earth, and water, and in all inanimate things made from them.

[42] Later in the 13th century, a Catholic priest and theologian Thomas Aquinas defined natural science as dealing with "mobile beings" and "things which depend on a matter not only for their existence but also for their definition.

[54] Several 17th-century philosophers, including René Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, Marin Mersenne, Nicolas Malebranche, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Francis Bacon, made a break from the past by rejecting Aristotle and his medieval followers outright, calling their approach to natural philosophy superficial.

[55] The titles of Galileo's work Two New Sciences and Johannes Kepler's New Astronomy underscored the atmosphere of change that took hold in the 17th century as Aristotle was dismissed in favor of novel methods of inquiry into the natural world.

"[57] Bacon proposed that scientific inquiry be supported by the state and fed by the collaborative research of scientists, a vision that was unprecedented in its scope, ambition, and forms at the time.

[60] Natural philosophers including Isaac Newton, Evangelista Torricelli and Francesco Redi, Edme Mariotte, Jean-Baptiste Denis and Jacques Rohault conducted experiments focusing on the flow of water, measuring atmospheric pressure using a barometer and disproving spontaneous generation.

[62] Newton in 1687 published his The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, or Principia Mathematica, which set the groundwork for physical laws that remained current until the 19th century.