The natural sciences
Knowledge of the physical world produced through observation, modelling and controlled intervention. Its authority rests less on the certainty of any single result than on the community practices that expose results to being overturned.
Through the knowledge framework
Knowledge questions
- 01Where does the subject matter of a discipline stop, and who decides?
- 02Can a discipline be about something that cannot be observed?
Knowledge questions
- 01Whose questions has this discipline historically taken seriously?
- 02Can a field be rigorous and systematically blind at the same time?
- 03How does a discipline resolve disagreement among its own practitioners?
Knowledge questions
- 01What can a discipline's methods not detect, even in principle?
- 02How does a community decide that a result has been established?
- 03Do instruments extend a knower's senses or replace their judgement?
Knowledge questions
- 01Are there questions a discipline should decline to ask?
- 02What does a practitioner owe when communicating uncertainty?
- 03Who bears responsibility when knowledge is applied badly?
- 04Does a discipline's responsibility end when its findings are published?