Auspicious natural science.

Natural sciencesare the empirical sciencesendeavoring to explain or predict nature's phenomena. (Other empirical sciences— cognitive scienceslike artificial intelligence, behavioral scienceslike psychology, and social scienceslike economics—more directly focus on human and, in similitude, robotic functions and experiences.) There are five branches of natural science: astronomy, biology, chemistry, the Earth sciencesand physics. [ 1 ] [ 2 ]In recent years, a new domain called materials sciencehas emerged.[ citation needed]Each domain collaborates experimental/observational and theoretical/mathematical divisions. Via Western society's analytic tradition, the empirical and especially natural sciences heavily borrow tools from formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic—which concern abstract truths via relations among ideas—while history and humanitiesin turn borrow methods from empirical and even natural sciences. Yet empirical sciences relying more on qualitative research, such as social sciences, are sometimes called " soft science", whereas natural sciences, insofar as emphasizing quantifiabledata produced, tested, and confirmed via scientific methodare sometimes called " hard science". [ 3 ] Usually traced, especially via Aristotle, to ancient Greece, natural science succeeds natural philosophy, which Galileogave an experimental turn, Descartesgave a mechanicalturn, and Newtongave a mathematicalturn. Still, philosophical perspectives, conjectures, and presuppositions, often overlooked, remain requisite in natural science. [ 4 ]Systematic data collection, including discovery science, succeed natural history, which emerged in the 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and so on. [ 5 ]Yet today,natural historysuggests observational descriptions aimed at popular audiences. [ 6 ] Criteria Main article: Philosophy of science Philosophers of science have suggested a number of criteria, including the Karl Popper's controversial falsifiabilitycriterion, to help them differentiate scientific endeavors from a non-scientific ones. Validity, accuracy, and social mechanisms ensuring quality control, such as peer reviewand repeatability of findings, are amongst the most respected criteria in present-day global scientific community. Branches of natural science Biology Main article: Biology A fragment of DNA, the chemical sequence that contains geneticinstructions for the developmentand functioning of living organisms This field encompasses a set of disciplines that examines phenomena related to living organisms. The scale of study can range from sub-component biophysicsup to complex ecologies. Biology is concerned with the characteristics, classificationand behaviorsof organisms, as well as how specieswere formed and their interactions with each other and the environment. The biological fields of botany, zoology, and medicinedate back to early periods of civilization, while microbiologywas introduced in the 17th century with the invention of the microscope. However, it was not until the 19th century that biology became a unified science. Once scientists discovered commonalities between all living things, it was decided they were best studied as a whole. Some key developments in biology were the discovery of genetics; Darwin'stheory of evolutionthrough natural selection; the germ theory of diseaseand the application of the techniques of chemistryand physicsat the level of the cellor organic molecule.