Evolution of science II: Insights into working of Nature

TL;DR

This paper models the evolution of science over millennia, highlighting the shifting dominance of different approaches and predicting a future reliance on logic-based methods over axiomatic systems.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive historical framework of scientific approaches and forecasts the transition towards logic-based methods involving experimentation and simulation.

Findings

Five primary approaches to studying nature identified.

Axiomatic approach may reach its limits due to complexity.

Future science likely to rely on logic, experimentation, and simulation.

Abstract

We attempt to provide a comprehensive model of evolution of science across millennia taking into account the contributions of other intellectual traditions, cultural value system and increasing in sophistication of humans in their study of nature. We also briefly discuss the role of technology and its interplay in the evolution of science. We identify five primary approaches to the study of nature, namely ad hoc formulations, religious approach, pragmatic approach, axiomatic approach and the logic based approach. Each of these approaches have had their prime periods and have contributed significantly to human understanding of nature and have also overlapped within a society. Each approach has had a central role over human evolution at some stage. We surmise that the currently dominant axiomatic method will reach its limits due to complexity of the system and may never be fully formalised. We suggest that the future progress of science will more be a logic based approach where experimentation and simulations rather than axiomatic firmness will be used to test our understanding of nature.