Scientific Thinking: Meaning, Characteristics, and Methods

Even though the concept of thinking is multifaceted and includes many features, ways of thinking can always be conditionally divided into empirical and scientific. Essay writing helps develop scientific thinking and wow essay service proves it.

The practical way of thinking, considered ordinary every day, assumes that a person perceives the world subjectively, just constantly interacting with it. The scientific way, on the other hand, is different. What it is and what thinking is considered scientific — will examine in this article.

The essence of scientific thinking and its place in our lives

The formation of scientific thinking as the main method of cognition of reality began relatively recently. Still, its basis and basic laws began to lay down even by ancient Greek thinkers. And even though now the concept of “scientific thinking” is more familiar to scientists, researchers and academics, it is closely related to the empirical thinking of man and certain elements of it each of us knows and applies in life.

But still, to establish the difference between ordinary and scientific thinking, we should outline two central concepts:

• Thinking is the cognitive and exploratory activity of man, seeking to objectively reflect in his mind the essence of objects, objects, and phenomena of reality around him.
• Science is an activity consisting of collecting, developing, and systematizing data about the world, aiming to explain events and phenomena of the world around us based on scientific laws.
• From this, we can conclude: while in empirical thinking, man operates with his subjective experience and uses the simplest forms of analysis, in scientific thinking, he applies methods of objectivity, consistency, and evidence.

However, as science developed, the man concluded that the difference between the two considered modes of thinking is not as definite as it may seem. They are both built on a single mechanism: abstraction.

It means that a person, cognizing the world, applies his ability to “disconnect” from concrete characteristics of objects and phenomena to see the essential. An example of this is comparing objects and phenomena, people and objects, and sorting them.

To illustrate this, it is enough to recall how we divide our surroundings into those we do not want to communicate with, divide colleagues into subordinates and bosses, define food as tasty or unpalatable, etc. All this is required to better understand how to act in certain situations based on our goals and objectives.

But, one way or another, we can still identify two categories of people:

• People who are oriented toward a style of scientific thinking. As a rule, they are very active, psychologically flexible, independent, willing to accept new things, and ready for change. They prefer to argue and discuss, striving to assess the world objectively.
• People-oriented to a style of unscientific thinking. Such people are attracted to everything interesting, mysterious, and of practical use. They are driven by feeling in life, leaving the substance of things, evidence, and verification of results in the background.
• We do not presume to judge which style of thinking is best, for everyone can hold his or her views on the matter. But we can still point out that scientific thinking (even if it is only used occasionally) has several tangible advantages. First, it contributes to acquiring basic knowledge about many objects and phenomena of the world around us and thus serves as insurance against ignorance, stupidity, and illiteracy.

Second, this way of thinking perfectly develops not only accurate and mathematical but also creative and abstract thinking.

Thirdly, scientific thinking forms a curious mind and motivates a person to solve many problems — educational, professional, business, and personal. In addition, it lays the foundation for teamwork and thus creates the value of mutual understanding and mutual support. The importance of science in human life and society is very well explained in this video.

Peculiarities of scientific thinking

Science is a special sphere of human activity in which knowledge about surrounding reality is developed and theoretically systematized. It simultaneously represents both activities of getting new knowledge and its result, i.e., the totality of that knowledge, which is the basis of the scientific picture of the world.

And, of course, the thinking of people drawn to science differs from the thinking of “ordinary people. Here are the features of scientific thinking we can distinguish:

• Objectivity. If we take any other way of thinking and cognition, we see a symbiosis of objective and subjective perception. In scientific thinking, the subjective and objective are distinguished. For example, when we look at a painting of an artist, we will always see the imprint of his subjective view, but when we study the laws of Newton, there is no information about the scientist’s personality.
• Systematicity. The theoretical foundations on which any scientific knowledge rests create a specific system. This system can be built up over dozens or even hundreds of years and includes descriptions and explanations of phenomena and facts, subsequently defining terms and concepts.
• Reasonableness. The body of scientific knowledge includes many theories, hypotheses, and assumptions. Some of them are proven, and some are not. But in any case, each of them has the goal of being reasonably proven or disproven in the future.
• Future-oriented. Science and scientific thinking involve the study of phenomena, objects, and objects relevant to the current period and those that will be important in the future. Science seeks to anticipate the development, modification, and transformation of what it is studying into something that will be useful to humanity in the future. It is why one of the fundamental tasks of science is to determine the laws and regularities of the development of objects and phenomena. Scientific thinking allows you to construct the future from the individual elements of the present.
• Conceptuality. In the scientific way of thinking, all laws, terms, and theories are fixed in a concrete language with the help of symbols, formulas, and other signs. Thus this language is formed during all time as long as there is science and is in a state of constant development, addition, and improvement.
• Awareness. Absolutely all scientific methods applied in the work of scientists and researchers, studying the phenomena, objects, and connections between them, are extremely accurately realized by people and under their constant control.
• Experimental approach. Like empirical methods of cognition, scientific cognition involves experimentation, particularly when any concepts and theories are formed. But only the scientific way of thinking contributes to a sufficient body of results to draw reliable conclusions.
• The construction of theories. Using the experimental way of obtaining information, scientists make theories out of information.

In addition to the listed features of scientific thinking, we can point out a few more:

• logical consistency — scientific knowledge and its elements should not contradict each other;
• confirmability and reproducibility — all valid scientific knowledge must, if necessary, be confirmed by experience again;
• Simplicity — the widest possible range of phenomena should be explained with relatively few bases and without the use of arbitrary assumptions;
• continuity — of the many new ideas competing with each other, preference should be given to the one that is “less aggressive” concerning previous knowledge;
• availability of methodology — scientific knowledge should assume the use of special methods and techniques, and they should be justified;
• Accuracy and formalization — knowledge obtained through scientific thinking must be extremely precise and fixed in the form of clear laws, principles, and concepts.
• If we summarize all of the above, we can conclude that scientific thinking can perform cognitive, practical-activational, cultural and cultural, and worldview functions, as well as the function of the social, because it promotes the study of life and activities of people and often determines ways and means of the practical application of the knowledge and skills available to us.

It is also appropriate to say that any scientific knowledge (knowledge obtained through scientific thinking) has empirical and theoretical levels.

Summary

The development of scientific thinking has influenced the formation of a scientific picture of the world — a special type of knowledge system from different fields, united by a single general scientific doctrine. It combines biological, chemical, physical, and mathematical laws, giving a general description of the world.

In addition to the scientific picture, people have philosophical, artistic, and religious views of the surrounding reality. But only scientific perception can be called objective, systematic, synthesizing, and analyzing. In addition, the reflection of scientific perception can be found in religion, philosophy, and the products of artistic activity.

Scientific knowledge and scientific thinking have greatly influenced alternative ways of perceiving the world. In today’s world, we can observe that based on the achievements of science, there are changes in church dogmas, social norms, art, and even in everyday life of people.

It can be safely argued that scientific thinking is a method of perception of reality, improving the quality of knowledge itself and contributing to the individual’s self-improvement. As a result, a person has tangible benefits: he begins to realize and understand the most relevant individual tasks, set more realistic and achievable goals, make the right decisions and overcome difficulties more effectively.

Scientific thinking contributes to improving the life of each individual and society as a whole and understanding the meaning of life and one’s purpose.