Natural Sciences deal with matter, energy, their interrelation and transformation, as well as objectively measurable phenomena.

In ancient times, philosophers studied this science. Later, the basis of this doctrine was developed by natural scientists of the past such as Pascal, Newton, Lomonosov, Pirogov. They developed natural science.

Natural sciences differ from the humanities in the presence of an experiment, which consists of active interaction with the object being studied.

Humanities study human activity in the field of spiritual, mental, cultural and social. There is an argument that humanitarian sciences study the student himself, in contrast to natural ones.

Basic natural knowledge

Basic natural knowledge includes:

Physical Sciences:

• physics,
• engineering,
• about materials,
• chemistry;

• biology,
• medicine;

• geography,
• ecology,
• climatology,
• soil science,
• anthropology.

There are two other types: formal, social and human sciences.

Chemistry, biology, geosciences, astronomy, physics are part of this knowledge. There are also cross-cutting disciplines such as biophysics, which takes into account different aspects of several subjects.

Until the 17th century, these disciplines were often referred to as "natural philosophy" due to the lack of experiments and procedures used today.

Chemistry

Much of what defines modern civilization comes from advances in knowledge and technology brought about by the natural sciences of chemistry. For example, modern production of sufficient quantities of food is impossible without the Haber-Bosch process, which was developed during the First World War. This chemical process allows the creation of ammonia fertilizer from atmospheric nitrogen, rather than relying on a biologically fixed source of nitrogen such as cow manure, significantly increasing soil fertility and consequently food supply.

Within these broad categories of chemistry in countless fields of knowledge, many of which have important influence on daily life. Chemists improve many products, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear and the materials we use to build our homes. Chemistry helps protect our environment and seeks new sources of energy.

Biology and medicine

Thanks to advances in biology, especially in the 20th century, doctors were able to use various medications for the treatment of many diseases that were previously highly fatal. Through research in biology and medicine, 19th century disasters such as plague and smallpox have been significantly brought under control. Infant and maternal mortality rates have fallen sharply in industrialized countries. Biological geneticists have even understood the individual code within each person.

Geoscience

The science that studies the production and practical use knowledge about the earth has allowed humanity to extract huge quantities of minerals and oil from the earth's crust to power the engines of modern civilization and industry. Paleontology, the knowledge of the earth, provides a window into the distant past, even further back than humans existed. Through discoveries in geology and similar information in the natural sciences, scientists are able to better understand the history of the planet and predict changes that may occur in the future.

Astronomy and physics

In many ways, physics is a science that underlies both the natural sciences and offers some of the most unexpected discoveries XX century. Among the most notable of these was the discovery that matter and energy are constant and simply change from one state to another.

Physics is a natural science based on experiments, measurements and mathematical analysis to find quantitative physical laws for everything from the nanoworld to solar systems and macrocosmic galaxies.

Through observational and experimental research, the physical laws and theories that explain the functioning of natural forces such as gravity, electromagnetism, or nuclear forces are explored.The discovery of new laws of natural science of physics contributes to the existing base of theoretical knowledge and can also be used for practical applications such as equipment development, electronic devices, nuclear reactors, etc.

Thanks to astronomy, scientists have discovered a huge amount of information about the Universe. In previous centuries it was believed that the entire universe was simply Milky Way. A series of debates and observations in the 20th century revealed that the universe is literally millions of times larger than previously thought.

Various types of sciences

The work of philosophers and natural scientists of the past and the subsequent scientific revolution helped create the modern knowledge base.

The natural sciences are often called "hard science" due to their intensive use of objective data and quantitative methods, which rely on numbers and mathematics. In contrast, social sciences such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology rely more on qualitative assessments or alphanumeric data and tend to have fewer concrete conclusions. Formal types of knowledge, including mathematics and statistics, are highly quantitative in nature and do not usually involve the study of natural phenomena or experiments.

Today actual problems The development of the humanities and natural sciences has many parameters for solving the problems of human existence and society in the world, they gave.

Natural science is a sphere of human activity aimed at obtaining new information about the surrounding world, which lives according to objective laws independent of humans. In contrast to the natural sciences, the object of study of the humanities is human activity itself, as a subjective process. However, this subjective process is being studied objective methods. It is the latter circumstance that allows us to consider the humanities as sciences, and not as art. If the goal of human natural science activity is to understand the world as it really is, then the goal of human activity in the field of art is to show how the world is subjectively perceived by man.

Modern natural science cannot be imagined as a kind of archive, where a huge amount of facts and various information about the structure of the surrounding world have simply been accumulated “sorted into shelves.” Natural science compares facts and observations and strives to create a MODEL in which these facts are collected into a single, CONSISTENT system based on theoretical concepts, provisions and generalizations. Natural science also seeks to expand and clarify the created picture of the world, using this model to plan and carry out new observations and experiments.

Given some distinctive features(requirements) scientific methodology in the field of natural science:

predictiveness - generalized in the form of a theory scientific concepts, models must predict the behavior of objects in the surrounding world, observed in an experiment or directly in the environment

reproducibility - scientific experiments must be performed in such a way that they can be reproduced by other researchers and in other laboratories

minimal sufficiency - in the process of describing scientific data, one cannot create concepts beyond those that are necessary (the so-called “Occam’s razor” principle)

objectivity - when constructing a scientific theory or hypothesis, it is unacceptable to selectively take into account only selected (discarding other data) facts and observations, depending on the personal inclinations, interests, attachments and level of training of the scientist.

succession - scientific work should take into account and refer to the background of the issue under study as much as possible

Science is not only about learning new information, but also about learning how to gain new information. Being both the goal and the means of human activity, natural science is a self-developing and self-accelerating process.

universe black hole space

System classification of natural sciences

Traditionally, natural sciences include such sciences as physics, chemistry, biology, geology, geography, and other disciplines.

How objective is such a classification, where and by what principle should the boundaries between different sciences be drawn, is it possible to separate certain branches of natural science into separate sciences? Obviously, to answer this question, a natural classification of the hierarchy of scientific knowledge is necessary, which would not depend on traditions and would be objective. In other words, an objective criterion is needed for identifying a particular field of knowledge as a separate science.

This classification includes a systematic classification of sciences - not only natural ones. It is based on the following principle: the object of each science should be a holistic, separate system.

Let us dwell in more detail on the concept of “system”.

A system is usually understood as a set of interacting elements, each of which is necessary for this system to perform its specific functions. As we can see, the definition of a system here consists of two parts, and the second part, concerning system elements, is non-trivial and non-obvious. From this definition it follows that not every component of the system is a system element. So, for example, a signal light on the front panel of a computer will not be a system element of it, since removing the light bulb or failure will not cause a failure in the execution of software tasks, whereas the processor, obviously, is such an element.

From the definition we have given, it follows that the number of system elements in a system is always finite, but they themselves are discrete and their choice is not random. Individual elements and their properties, when combined into a system, always give rise to a new quality, a system function that is not reducible to the quality and functions of its constituent elements.

Systems can be natural and artificial, objective and subjective. Natural sciences include sciences that have natural systems as the object of their study, which are always objective. Subjective systems are the objects of study in the humanities. Note that some systems, for example information systems, can be both artificial and at the same time objective. Another example: a computer, as an integral information system, is traditionally subject to study within the framework of computer science. From the point of view of system classification, it would be more accurate to distinguish computer information science as an independent science, not computer science in general, since Information Systems can be very different.

System elements are themselves systems; we can say that systems of different orders are nested within each other, like nesting dolls.

For example, philosophy has as its object of study the utmost common system, consisting of only two elements - matter and consciousness. If we talk about the largest system known to us, then it is the Universe, studied as an integral object by the science of cosmology.

The systems of the lowest order known to modern science are considered to be elementary particles. We still know little about internal structure elementary particles, even if we take into account the hypothesis about the existence of quarks, which have not yet been obtained in free form. Nevertheless, the system elements that make up elementary particles can include not only quarks, but also their properties (qualities) - charge, mass, spin and other characteristics.

The science that studies elementary particles as integral, isolated systems is called elementary particle physics.

Elementary particles are elements of higher order systems - atomic nuclei, and even higher ones - atoms. Accordingly, nuclear and atomic physics are distinguished.

In turn, the atoms combine to form molecules. The science that has molecules as its object of study is called chemistry. How can one not recall the well-known definition: molecules are called tiny particles substances that still retain Chemical properties this substance!

We will continue to move along the hierarchical ladder of the natural sciences. In living organisms, molecules participate in complex interactions—long sequences and cycles of reactions catalyzed by enzymes. There are, for example, the so-called glycolytic pathway, Krebs cycle, Calvin cycle, pathways for the synthesis of amino acids, nucleic acids and many others. All of them are complex, integral, self-organizing systems, called biochemical. Accordingly, the science that studies them is called biochemistry.

Biochemical processes and complex molecular structures are combined into even more complex formations - living cells studied by cytology. Cells form tissues that are studied as integral systems by another science - histology. The next level of the hierarchy refers to isolated living complexes formed by tissues - organs. In the complex of biological disciplines, it is not customary to single out a science that could be called “organology”; however, such sciences as cardiology are known in medicine (studies the heart and cardiovascular system), pulmonology (lungs), urology (organs genitourinary system) and etc.

And finally, we are approaching science, which has a living organism as an object of its study, as an integral, separate system (individual). This science is physiology. Distinguish between the physiology of humans, animals, plants and microorganisms.

The systemic classification of natural sciences is not just some kind of abstract logical construction, but is a completely pragmatic approach to solving organizational problems.

Imagine the following situation. Two applicants come to the scientific council for the defense of dissertations for the degree of candidate of biological sciences. The first examined the breathing process in rats exposed to high physical stress. He studied the content of individual metabolites of the Krebs cycle, the functioning features of the components of the electron transport chain in mitochondria and other biochemical features of the respiration process in rats that were forced to high physical activity.

Another applicant studied basically the same things, using the same methods, but he was not interested in the effect of physical activity on breathing, but in the breathing process itself, as such, regardless of physical activity or even what organism was being studied.

The first applicant is informed that his work relates to physiology and is therefore accepted for consideration in this council with a specialization in “human and animal physiology,” and another was rejected, citing a discrepancy between the specialization of the work (“biochemistry”) and the specialization of the council.

How did it happen that very similar works ended up being classified as different sciences? In the first case, physical activity is a function of a living organism as an integral system, and therefore the work relates to physiology. In the second, the object of study is not the organism as a whole, but a separate biochemical system.

Further ascent up the hierarchical ladder of the natural sciences brings us to an interesting nodal point. Living organisms (individuals), as system elements, can be included in different systems higher order. A system consisting of only two elements - an individual (or population of individuals) and the environment (its biotic and abiotic parts) is considered in ecology.

A system consisting of individuals different types(or populations of different species) is studied by the science of biocenology. Accordingly, the subject (system) of studying this science may include many system elements. A set of interacting populations of different species occupying the same territory is called biocenoses. Interestingly, biocenoses are not a random collection of populations. They are complex, self-organizing systems that have some features of living organisms. Like individuals, biocenoses are born, develop (so-called succession), grow old and die. They are discrete: a clearly defined boundary can often be observed between different biocenoses, while intermediate forms are absent or unstable. Biocenoses are usually named according to the dominant plant species - if it is, for example, an oak, then the biocenosis is called an oak forest, if it is a feather grass, then it will be called “feather grass steppe”.

A system of a higher order than the biocenosis is the Earth's biosphere. In Russian, however, the word “biospherology” is absent; Instead, the term “biosphere doctrine” is used. The priority for the creation of this science belongs to the outstanding Russian scientist, Academician V.I. Vernadsky (1863-1945), who first drew attention to the fact that the biosphere is not just the sum of all biocenoses of the Earth, but a complex, self-organizing object, qualitatively different from any other known systems.

In turn, the biosphere is only one of the systemic elements of our planet. Unfortunately, there is no science that would describe the behavior of the Earth as an integral, self-organizing system for objective reasons. Modern natural science has accumulated too little information about how various planetary shells and levels of organization interact with each other - biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, mantle, core, etc.

Traditionally, it is not customary to isolate our knowledge about the formation, structure and processes that determine behavior into a separate science. solar system as a whole. Objectively, however, such an area of ​​knowledge exists and is considered within the framework of a complex of astronomical disciplines. The same applies to our galaxy.

And finally, the largest one known to us natural systems- this is the Universe, which, as we have already said, is studied by the science of cosmology.

So, we have examined a whole string of natural sciences and their corresponding systems. But where are the biology and physics we are used to among them? Apparently, within the framework of an objective, systematic classification, we cannot call either one or the other discipline sciences. There is no separate isolated system (or at least a class of systems) in relation to which it would be possible to formulate the task of physics (or biology) as a science that studies this system: the principle of “one science - one system” ceases to work. Biology and physics break up into many other sciences. Nevertheless, the traditional, subjective classification also has every right to exist: it is convenient and will be used in natural science for a long time.

With all the diversity of systems - large and small, natural and artificial, objective and subjective, there are some of their characteristics that are characteristic of all systems in general. They are called system-wide. There is also a science that studies them - systemology. The achievements of systemology help scientists working in other fields of knowledge to build hypotheses and make correct scientific conclusions. For example, among gerontological researchers (gerontology is the science of aging) there is sometimes a point of view that the aging of animals and humans is determined by a certain aging gene, by damaging which it is possible to ensure unlimited youth. However, the findings of systemology tell us something else. All complex self-developing systems, limited in spatial growth, age, so the reasons for the aging of humans and animals lie much deeper. In the same time general conclusions systemologies have only methodological significance. They cannot replace specific knowledge. In the case under consideration, it is quite possible to assume that some genes can indeed accelerate aging, but by removing these genes, or eliminating some other, specific causes of aging, we must understand that we will encounter other causes and will only be able to delay old age.

Natural science

In the broadest and most correct sense, the name E. should be understood as the science of the structure of the universe and the laws that govern it. E.'s aspiration and goal is to mechanically explain the structure of the cosmos in all its details, within the limits of the knowable, using techniques and methods characteristic of exact sciences, that is, through observation, experience and mathematical calculation. Thus, everything transcendental does not enter into the domain of E., for his philosophy revolves within a mechanical, therefore strictly defined and delimited circle. From this point of view, all branches of E. represent 2 main departments or 2 main groups, namely:

I. General natural science explores those properties of bodies that are assigned to them all indifferently, and therefore can be called common. This includes mechanics, physics and chemistry, which are sufficiently described in further relevant articles. Calculus (mathematics) and experience are the main techniques in these branches of knowledge.

II. Private natural science explores the forms, structure and movement characteristic exclusively of those diverse and countless bodies that we call natural, in order to explain the phenomena they represent with the help of the laws and conclusions of general E. Calculations can be applied here, but relatively only in rare cases, although achieving a possible accuracy here also consists in the desire to reduce everything to calculation and to solving problems in a synthetic way. The latter has already been achieved by one of the branches of private science, namely astronomy in its department called celestial mechanics, while physical astronomy can be developed mainly with the help of observation and experience (spectral analysis), as is typical for all branches of private E. Thus, the following sciences belong here: astronomy (see), mineralogy in the broad sense of this expression, i.e. with the inclusion of geology (see), botany and zoology. Three sciences were finally named and are still called in most cases natural history, this outdated expression should be eliminated or applied only to their purely descriptive part, which, in turn, received more rational names, depending on what is actually being described: minerals, plants or animals. Each of the branches of private economics is divided into several departments that have received independent meaning, due to its vastness, and most importantly due to the fact that the subjects being studied have to be considered from different points of view, which, moreover, require unique techniques and methods. Each of the branches of private economics has a side morphological And dynamic. The task of morphology is the knowledge of the forms and structure of all natural bodies, the task of dynamics is the knowledge of those movements that, through their activity, caused the formation of these bodies and support their existence. Morphology, through precise descriptions and classifications, obtains conclusions that are considered laws, or rather morphological rules. These rules can be more or less general, that is, for example, they apply to plants and animals or only to one of the kingdoms of nature. General rules there is no relation to all three kingdoms, and therefore botany and zoology constitute one general industry E., called biology. Mineralogy, therefore, constitutes a more isolated doctrine. Morphological laws or rules become more and more specific as we delve deeper into the study of the structure and shape of bodies. Thus, the presence of a bony skeleton is a law that applies only to vertebrates, the presence of seeds is a rule only regarding seed plants, etc. The dynamics of particular E. consists of geology in an inorganic environment and from physiology- in biology. These industries rely primarily on experience, and to some extent even on calculations. Thus, private natural sciences can be presented in the following classification:

	Morphology(sciences are predominantly observational)	Dynamics(sciences are predominantly experimental or, like celestial mechanics, mathematical)
Astronomy	Physical	Celestial mechanics
Mineralogy	Mineralogy proper with crystallography	Geology
Botany	Organography (morphology and systematics of living and obsolete plants, paleontology), plant geography	Physiology of plants and animals
Zoology	The same applies to animals, although the expression organography is not used by zoologists

Sciences, the basis of which is not only the general, but also the particular E.

Physical geography or physics globe
Meteorology	Can also be classified as physics, since they are mainly the application of this science to phenomena occurring in the earth’s atmosphere
Climatology
Orography
Hydrography
This also includes the factual side of the geography of animals and plants

The same as the previous ones, but with the addition of utilitarian goals.

The degree of development, as well as the properties of the subjects of study of the listed sciences, were the reason that, as already said, the methods they use are very different. As a result, each of them is divided into many separate specialties, often representing significant integrity and independence. So, in physics - optics, acoustics, etc. are studied independently, although the movements that constitute the essence of these phenomena are performed according to homogeneous laws. Among the special sciences, the oldest of them, namely celestial mechanics, which until recently constituted almost all of astronomy, is reduced almost exclusively to mathematics, while the physical part of this science calls upon chemical (spectral) analysis to its aid. The rest of the special sciences are growing with such rapidity and have achieved such an extraordinary expansion that their fragmentation into specialties is intensifying with every almost decade. So, in

IN modern world There are thousands of different sciences, educational disciplines, sections and other structural links. However, a special place among all is occupied by those that directly concern a person and everything that surrounds him. This is a system of natural sciences. Of course, all other disciplines are important too. But it is this group that has the most ancient origin, and therefore has special significance in people’s lives.

What are natural sciences?

The answer to this question is simple. These are disciplines that study man, his health, as well as the entire environment: soil in general, space, nature, substances that make up all living and nonliving bodies, their transformations.

The study of natural sciences has been interesting to people since ancient times. How to get rid of a disease, what the body consists of from the inside, and what they are, as well as millions of similar questions - this is what has interested humanity from the very beginnings of its emergence. The disciplines in question provide answers to them.

Therefore, to the question of what natural sciences are, the answer is clear. These are disciplines that study nature and all living things.

Classification

There are several main groups that belong to the natural sciences:

1. Chemical (analytical, organic, inorganic, quantum, organoelement compounds).
2. Biological (anatomy, physiology, botany, zoology, genetics).
3. chemistry, physical and mathematical sciences).
4. Earth sciences (astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, astrochemistry,
5. Sciences about the earth's shells (hydrology, meteorology, mineralogy, paleontology, physical geography, geology).

Only the basic natural sciences are presented here. However, it should be understood that each of them has its own subsections, branches, side and subsidiary disciplines. And if you combine all of them into a single whole, you can get a whole natural complex of sciences, numbering in hundreds of units.

Moreover, it can be divided into three large groups of disciplines:

• applied;
• descriptive;
• accurate.

Interaction between disciplines

Of course, no discipline can exist in isolation from others. All of them are in close harmonious interaction with each other, forming a single complex. For example, knowledge of biology would be impossible without the use technical means, designed on the basis of physics.

At the same time, it is impossible to study transformations inside living beings without knowledge of chemistry, because each organism is a whole factory of reactions occurring at colossal speed.

The interconnection of the natural sciences has always been traced. Historically, the development of one of them entailed intensive growth and accumulation of knowledge in the other. As soon as new lands began to be developed, islands and land areas were discovered, zoology and botany immediately developed. After all, the new habitats were inhabited (albeit not all) by previously unknown representatives of the human race. Thus, geography and biology are closely linked together.

If we talk about astronomy and related disciplines, it is impossible not to note the fact that they developed thanks to scientific discoveries in the field of physics and chemistry. The design of the telescope largely determined the successes in this area.

There are a lot of similar examples that can be given. All of them illustrate the close relationship between all natural disciplines that make up one huge group. Below we will consider the methods of natural sciences.

Research methods

Before dwelling on the research methods used by the sciences under consideration, it is necessary to identify the objects of their study. They are:

• Human;
• life;
• Universe;
• matter;
• Earth.

Each of these objects has its own characteristics, and to study them it is necessary to select one or another method. Among these, as a rule, the following are distinguished:

1. Observation is one of the simplest, most effective and ancient ways to understand the world.
2. Experimentation is the basis of chemical sciences and most biological and physical disciplines. Allows you to get the result and use it to draw a conclusion about
3. Comparison - this method is based on the use of historically accumulated knowledge on a particular issue and comparing it with the results obtained. Based on the analysis, a conclusion is drawn about the innovation, quality and other characteristics of the object.
4. Analysis. This method may include mathematical modeling, systematics, generalization, and effectiveness. Most often it is the final result after a number of other studies.
5. Measurement - used to assess the parameters of specific objects of living and inanimate nature.

There are also the latest modern methods research that is used in physics, chemistry, medicine, biochemistry and genetic engineering, genetics and other important sciences. This:

• electron and laser microscopy;
• centrifugation;
• biochemical analysis;
• X-ray structural analysis;
• spectrometry;
• chromatography and others.

Of course, this is far from full list. There are many different devices for working in every field of scientific knowledge. An individual approach is required to everything, which means that your own set of methods is formed, equipment and equipment are selected.

Modern problems of natural science

The main problems of natural sciences in modern stage development is a search for new information, accumulation of a theoretical knowledge base in a more in-depth, rich format. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the main problem of the disciplines under consideration was opposition to the humanities.

However, today this obstacle is no longer relevant, since humanity has realized the importance of interdisciplinary integration in mastering knowledge about man, nature, space and other things.

Now the disciplines of the natural science cycle are faced with a different task: how to preserve nature and protect it from the influence of man himself and his economic activities? And the problems here are the most pressing:

• acid rain;
• Greenhouse effect;
• ozone layer destruction;
• extinction of plant and animal species;
• air pollution and others.

Biology

In most cases, in response to the question “What are natural sciences?” One word immediately comes to mind - biology. This is the opinion of most people not associated with science. And this is a completely correct opinion. After all, what, if not biology, directly and very closely connects nature and man?

All disciplines that make up this science are aimed at studying living systems, their interactions with each other and with environment. Therefore, it is quite normal that biology is considered the founder of the natural sciences.

In addition, it is also one of the most ancient. After all, to oneself, one’s body, the surrounding plants and animals, it arose along with man. Genetics, medicine, botany, zoology, and anatomy are closely related to this discipline. All these branches make up biology as a whole. They give us a complete picture of nature, of man, and of all living systems and organisms.

Chemistry and physics

These fundamental sciences in the development of knowledge about bodies, substances and natural phenomena are no less ancient than biology. They also developed along with the development of man, his formation in the social environment. The main objectives of these sciences are the study of all bodies of inanimate and living nature from the point of view of the processes occurring in them, their connection with the environment.

Thus, physics examines natural phenomena, mechanisms and causes of their occurrence. Chemistry is based on the knowledge of substances and their mutual transformations into each other.

This is what natural sciences are.

Geosciences

And finally, we list the disciplines that allow us to learn more about our home, whose name is Earth. These include:

• geology;
• meteorology;
• climatology;
• geodesy;
• hydrochemistry;
• cartography;
• mineralogy;
• seismology;
• soil science;
• paleontology;
• tectonics and others.

There are about 35 different disciplines in total. Together they study our planet, its structure, properties and features, which is so necessary for human life and economic development.

System of natural science knowledge

Natural science is one of the components of the system of modern scientific knowledge, which also includes complexes of technical and human sciences. Natural science is an evolving system of ordered information about the laws of motion of matter.

The objects of research are individual natural sciences, the totality of which at the beginning of the 20th century. was called natural history, from the time of their inception to the present day there have been and remain: matter, life, man, the Earth, the Universe. Accordingly, modern natural science groups the basic natural sciences as follows:

• physics, chemistry, physical chemistry;
• biology, botany, zoology;
• anatomy, physiology, genetics (the study of heredity);
• geology, mineralogy, paleontology, meteorology, physical geography;
• astronomy, cosmology, astrophysics, astrochemistry.

Of course, only the main natural ones are listed here, but in fact modern natural science is a complex and branched complex that includes hundreds of scientific disciplines. Physics alone unites a whole family of sciences (mechanics, thermodynamics, optics, electrodynamics, etc.). As the volume of scientific knowledge grew, individual sections of the sciences acquired the status of scientific disciplines with their own conceptual apparatus, specific methods research, which often makes them difficult to access for specialists involved in other branches of the same, say, physics.

Such differentiation in the natural sciences (as, indeed, in science in general) is a natural and inevitable consequence of increasingly narrowing specialization.

At the same time also naturally In the development of science, counter processes occur, in particular, natural science disciplines are formed and formalized, as they often say, “at the intersections” of sciences: chemical physics, biochemistry, biophysics, biogeochemistry and many others. As a result, the boundaries that were once defined between individual scientific disciplines and their sections become very conditional, flexible and, one might say, transparent.

These processes, leading, on the one hand, to a further increase in the number of scientific disciplines, but on the other hand, to their convergence and interpenetration, are one of the evidence of the integration of natural sciences, reflecting the general trend in modern science.

It is here, perhaps, that it is appropriate to turn to such a scientific discipline, which undoubtedly occupies a special place, as mathematics, which is a research tool and a universal language not only of the natural sciences, but also of many others - those in which quantitative patterns can be discerned.

Depending on the methods underlying the research, we can talk about natural sciences:

• descriptive (examining evidence and connections between them);
• precise (building mathematical models to express established facts and connections, i.e. patterns);
• applied (using systematics and models of descriptive and exact natural sciences to master and transform nature).

However, the common generic feature of all sciences that study nature and technology is conscious activity professional workers science aimed at describing, explaining and predicting the behavior of the objects under study and the nature of the phenomena being studied. The humanities differ in that the explanation and prediction of phenomena (events) is based, as a rule, not on an explanation, but on an understanding of reality.

This is the fundamental difference between sciences that have objects of research that allow systematic observation, repeated experimental testing and reproducible experiments, and sciences that study essentially unique, non-repeating situations that, as a rule, do not allow exact repetition of an experiment, or carrying out a particular experiment more than once. or experiment.

Modern culture strives to overcome the differentiation of knowledge into many independent directions and disciplines, primarily the split between the natural and human sciences, which clearly emerged at the end of the 19th century. After all, the world is one in all its infinite diversity, therefore relatively independent areas of a single system of human knowledge are organically interconnected; the difference here is transitory, the unity is absolute.

Nowadays, the integration of natural science knowledge has clearly emerged, which manifests itself in many forms and is becoming the most pronounced trend in its development. This trend is increasingly manifested in the interaction of the natural sciences with the humanities. Evidence of this is the advancement to the front line modern science principles of systematicity, self-organization and global evolutionism, opening up the possibility of uniting a wide variety of scientific knowledge into an integral and consistent system, united by the general laws of the evolution of objects of various natures.

There is every reason to believe that we are witnessing an increasing rapprochement and mutual integration of the natural and human sciences. This is confirmed by the widespread use in humanitarian research not only of technical means and information technologies used in the natural and technical sciences, but also of general scientific research methods developed in the process of development of natural science.

The subject of this course is concepts related to the forms of existence and movement of living and inanimate matter, while the laws that determine the course of social phenomena are the subject of the humanities. It should, however, be borne in mind that, no matter how different the natural and human sciences are from each other, they have a general unity, which is the logic of science. It is the subordination of this logic that makes science a sphere of human activity aimed at identifying and theoretically systematizing objective knowledge about reality.

The natural scientific picture of the world is created and modified by scientists of different nationalities, including convinced atheists and believers of various faiths and denominations. However, in its professional activity they all proceed from the fact that the world is material, that is, it exists objectively regardless of the people who study it. Let us note, however, that the process of cognition itself can influence the objects of the material world being studied and how a person imagines them, depending on the level of development of research tools. In addition, every scientist proceeds from the fact that the world is fundamentally knowable.

The process of scientific knowledge is a search for truth. However, absolute truth in science is incomprehensible, and with every step along the path of knowledge it moves further and deeper. Thus, at each stage of cognition, scientists establish relative truth, understanding that at the next stage more accurate knowledge will be achieved, more adequate to reality. And this is another evidence that the process of cognition is objective and inexhaustible.