Science matters

Any sincere search for knowledge, the author argues, is an attempt to make sense of Nature, a category that takes in both living human systems and everything outside them. Seen this way, such searches all belong to science. They differ mainly in their tools. Writers and thinkers rely on their senses and their minds, while natural scientists also depend on instruments and computers. Despite these differences, the author proposes viewing all of these pursuits together, as branches of one enterprise at different stages of development that can learn from one another.

The idea that science covers all of Nature is old. Aristotle and Leonardo da Vinci both recognised it. Only in recent times, however, thanks to modern science and the insights drawn from statistical physics, the study of complex systems, and other fields, has it become possible to study human-related disciplines scientifically.

The book examines all knowledge that depends on people, treating humans as a material system of Homo sapiens to be studied through the lens of complex systems. It covers the ground of the humanities and social sciences. Its contributors include humanists, social scientists and physicists. It is written for anyone curious about the world who wants to understand it from a single, unified viewpoint, whether they come from the arts or the sciences.