The term natural science as the way in which different fields of study are defined is determined as much by historical convention as by the present day meaning of the words.
Thus the traditional description of natural science is the study of the physical, nonhuman aspects of the Earth and the universe around us. As a group, the natural sciences are distinguished from theology and the social sciences, on the one hand, and from the arts and humanities on the other. Mathematics is not itself a natural science, but provides many tools used within the natural sciences. Natural sciences generally attempt to explain the workings of the world via natural processes rather than divine processes. The term natural science is also used to identify "science" as a discipline following the scientific method.
Alongside this traditional usage, more recently the words "natural sciences" are sometimes used in a way more closely matching their everyday meaning. In this sense "natural sciences" can be an alternative phrase for biological sciences, involved in biological processes, and are distinguished from the physical sciences (involved in the physical and chemical laws underlying the universe).
The History of Recent Science and Technology (http://hrst.mit.edu/)
Reviews of Books About Natural Science (http://www.scibooks.org/) This site contains over 50 previously published reviews of books about natural science, plus selected essays on timely topics in natural science.
The term natural science is also used to differentiate those fields using scientific method in the study of nature, in contrast with social sciences which use the scientific method applied to human behavior, and in contrast to formal science, which uses different methodology.
Together, the natural and applied sciences are distinguished from the social sciences on the one hand, and from the humanities, theology and the arts on the other.
In this sense "natural sciences" can be an alternative phrase for biological sciences, involved in biological processes, or perhaps also the earth sciences, as might be distinguished from the physical sciences (more directly involved in the study of physical and chemical laws underlying the universe).
Since in natural science there is a given and generally accepted terminology, and in addition a large number of generally accepted methods (and basic theories), the naturalscientist need not use much text on sections dealing with such matters, at the same time as much natural science consists of developing new methods.
Naturalscientists do not all work with experiments, in which a small number of factors are isolated – but the method of repeatable experiments may be seen as an ideal for naturalscientists.
Naturalscientists find almost incomprehensible the importance that humanscientists attach to the design of the introduction, with all the understood or implied references (or lack of them) it includes.
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