ABSTRACT
Traditionally, in many national contexts, the science curriculum concerned a selection of science topics and perhaps skill areas. Students learning chemistry in school should experience it as being a science. Science is about developing knowledge of the natural world— but it is about developing certain kinds of knowledge, and in certain ways. Science seeks nomothetic knowledge; objective knowledge; and knowledge that is theoretical but supported by logical argumentation based upon empirical evidence. The natural sciences— chemistry along with physics, biology, astronomy, geology, and so forth— are seeking to develop knowledge of the natural world. Some economists seem to consider that they are natural scientists, and psychology is a broad discipline with some traditions that are clearly within natural science and others less so. The term nomothetic is not widely used by practicing scientists themselves, and a more familiar, related term would be ‘generalisable’ knowledge. Another important idea about science is that it is objective. Science seeks objective knowledge.
