Good question: what really distinguishes the humanities from the sciences? Social-humanitarian and natural sciences.

The birth of modern science is usually attributed to the times Ancient Greece(see article ""). Many contemporary humanitarian and natural Sciences find their roots precisely in the works of the philosophers of Hellas. In European university science, these roots gave new shoots in the Renaissance. In the early stages of the development of science, most scientists were well-versed in almost all areas of knowledge. However, this encyclopedism was lost as an uncontrollably growing number of facts, theories, hypotheses, and experimental approaches accumulated. The sciences became more and more differentiated, and scientists, suppressed by the growing volume, became more and more narrow specialists. Back in the last century, A. K. Tolstoy, through the mouth of Kozma Prutkov, declared: “A specialist is like a flux: his fullness is one-sided.”

Gradually, the sciences were more and more sharply divided into the humanities and the natural, and even natural scientists, for example, physicists and biologists, often ceased to understand each other. More and more appreciated were the narrowest specialists who knew everything in one very specific area of ​​science, even if in all the rest they were simply ignorant. The scientific snobbery of such natural scientists even gave rise to a popular joke: "Sciences are divided into natural, unnatural - humanitarian and unnatural - philosophy." The extreme divergence of sciences, the inability and "proud" unwillingness of scientists of different specialties, with the exception of the most widely educated, to understand the foundations of not only related, but also more or less "remote" areas of knowledge, was reflected in the growth of specialization of technology. Up to a certain stage, this was supported by the economy, because usually an extremely narrowly specialized machine, device provides the highest labor productivity. But even in the traditional natural sciences that had developed by the end of the last century, problems were accumulating that required turning to other areas of knowledge. One after another, new, “frontier” sciences began to emerge - physical chemistry and chemical physics, biochemistry and biophysics, geophysics and biogeochemistry, etc. impacts.

The receipt of cheap hydropower brought enormous losses to agriculture, removing from circulation large areas the most fertile floodplain lands; the most economical ways of harvesting wood - clear felling, skidding with powerful tractors - almost irreversibly destroyed forests, cheap transportation of timber along, especially mole rafting, made many lifeless, excessive irrigation led to salinization and actual destruction. Examples of such "victories over nature", which are still being made today, can be continued almost endlessly.

Life demanded new encyclopedists - broad-skilled specialists, the so-called “system specialists”, who inevitably did not know enough details of individual industries and their theoretical foundations, but were able to understand the interaction of various forces, both natural and man-made. Awareness of the threat of an ecological crisis only exacerbated the objective need for such “new model” encyclopedic scientists. Since man has always been and remains the main object of concern for science and technology, a new integration of the natural and human sciences has become necessary.

Everything, on the development of which the future of mankind will largely depend, has essentially become an integrative science. It combines the main approaches of biogeochemistry, climatology, geography, history, economics, and many other natural and human sciences. Of course, a modern encyclopedist often has to resort to the help of specialists and himself to operate not so much with the entire arsenal of facts and theories of many sciences (this exceeds human capabilities), but rather to know their basic laws and empirical generalizations. But without such experts, it is no longer possible to make a single decision, the implementation of which is associated with any impact on the natural environment.

Culture as a set of norms, knowledge, traditions, is closely connected with religion as one of its main forms. The culture of different ethnic groups in their historical existence was formed to a large extent under the influence of gradually developing stable interactions of ethnic groups with the enclosing landscapes, the natural environment of people's lives. Modern civilization, largely formed under the influence of the European one and having adopted its main features, considers unlimited economic, primarily material development as priority values, the only source of which is the ever-increasing use of renewable and non-renewable resources. natural resources. This path obviously leads to the inevitable intensification of the ecological crisis, which arose as one of the many sides of the crisis of modern consumer civilization. Apparently, only overcoming the civilizational crisis will make possible a real solution to the entire complex global problems, constituting in their relationship the threat of an ecological crisis.

Ethnic history convinces of the possibility of changing the basic values, and the realization of the inevitability of this creates the prospect of a transition, as the most priority values ​​of mankind, to an unlimited spiritual and scientific development and improvement, to the need to preserve natural environment in all its diversity. In such a rethinking of the ideals and goals of life leading role can, apparently, play religion, science, education.

Modern scientists clearly see the huge prospects further development sciences and a radical change in human ideas about the world with their help. The natural laws of nature, as well as the ways of its transformation and development, while studying man and his laws evolutionary development. Natural sciences study structure objectively existing world and the nature of all its elements, appealing to experience as a criterion for the truth of knowledge.

Researchers consider science to be a rather young analytical phenomenon that has not yet comprehended all the secrets and universes.

The humanities, unlike the natural sciences, study the world that is created by man, from the side of its cultural values ​​and spiritual content, while relying on the meaning and significance of things. Besides, humanitarian sciences work with sign systems and the relation of these systems to human reality.

Functions

Humanitarian and also differ in their functions. Thus, natural sciences tend to describe, explain and predict phenomena/properties material world, while the humanities seek to discover and interpret this or that meaning of things. There are several interpretations of understanding - one of them, purely psychological, claims that initially the process of understanding is an act of getting used to the motives and goals of the author's intention.

For example, historical events understood through the disclosure of political, social, economic and cultural conditions, as well as specific actions.

Another interpretation is based on the idea of ​​an event or work, the object of understanding of which is the meaning, usually interpreted as an invariant textual content in relation to the variants of its retelling or its presentation using various sign systems. Otherwise, the boundaries between the humanities and the natural sciences are rather arbitrary. On the present stage development of scientific knowledge, they are characterized by mutual enrichment of scientific methodologies and criteria for evaluating various scientific results.

At the theoretical level, individual sciences have a general theoretical and philosophical explanation. open laws and principles used to form the methodological and ideological sides scientific knowledge. An essential component of general scientific knowledge is the philosophical interpretation of scientific data, which constitutes the methodological and ideological foundations of the natural sciences and the humanities.

Determining the place of natural science in contemporary culture, it should be noted that modern science has a complex organization. All numerous disciplines are combined as complexes of sciences - natural, humanitarian, technical, etc.

Natural science is a system of scientific knowledge about nature. The natural sciences include such subjects as: chemistry, physics, biology, physiology, geology, mechanics, electrical engineering, etc.

Physics (Greek ta physika - from physis - nature) is the science of nature, which studies the simplest and at the same time the most general properties material world. According to the objects studied, physics is divided into: physics elementary particles, atomic nuclei, atoms, molecules, solid body, plasma, etc.

The main sections of theoretical physics include: mechanics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics, optics, statistical physics, relativity theory, quantum mechanics, quantum theory fields.

Physics began to develop even before BC. e. In the 17th century, classical mechanics was created, to which I. Newton contributed. To late XIX century, the formation of classical physics was basically completed.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a revolution takes place in physics, it becomes quantum and such scientists as M. Planck, E. Rutherford, N. Bohr introduced their transformations into it.

In the 20s. Quantum mechanics was developed - a consistent theory of the motion of microparticles. At the same time, a new doctrine of space and time appeared - A. Einstein's theory of relativity, physics is becoming relativistic.

In the second half of the 20th century, a further significant transformation of physics took place, associated with the knowledge of the structure of the atomic nucleus, the properties of elementary particles, and condensed matter. Physics has become a source of new ideas that have transformed modern technology: nuclear energy(N. V. Kurchatov), ​​quantum electronics (N. G. Basov, A. M. Prokhorov and C. Towns), microelectronics, radar and others arose and developed as a result of the achievements of physics.

Physics is one of the most developed and ancient sciences, which determines the development of natural science. Physics introduces us to the most general laws of nature that govern the course of processes in the world around us and in the universe as a whole. Then the expansion of the circle of phenomena under study led to its division; gradually new sciences about nature began to appear, for example, electrical engineering, mechanics, statistical physics, thermodynamics, etc. Physicists do not study nature directly, they do not deal with natural phenomena. An experimental physicist, setting up an experiment, looks at the movement of some arrows, studies photographs of the tracks of some particles, and the like. A theoretical physicist writes something on paper, makes some calculations, comes to some conclusions about the results of certain experiments. That's exactly what physicists do.

Before setting up an experiment or making any calculations, a person creates in his mind a certain model of those phenomena that he wants to study, investigate. Analyzing the model, the physicist concludes what should be the result of the experiment. He expects that if you assemble such and such a device, then the arrows will show such and such. He assembles such a device, sets up an experiment and makes sure that the arrows behave in the right way. He says with satisfaction that his model accurately reflects the phenomenon under study. Similarly, the theoretician, having a store of some laws of nature - or inventing a new law - draws conclusions from it and sees whether these conclusions agree with what the experimenter receives. That's how physics works. Thus, the main thing in the activity of natural scientists is the study of the surrounding world, through its modeling.

Chemistry is a science that studies the transformation of substances, which are accompanied by a change in their composition and structure. Modern chemistry is such a vast area of ​​natural science that many of its sections are independent, although closely related scientific disciplines.

Biology is a set of sciences about wildlife, about the diversity of living beings that have died out and now inhabit the Earth, their structure and functions, origin, distribution and development, relationships with each other and with inanimate nature.

Geology is a science that studies the specifics of the planetary matter of the Earth. Thus, it can be said that XIX century there was a set of sciences about nature, which began to be called such a science as modern natural science.

Most closely to the natural sciences have always adjoined the humanities, which were engaged in the study of the phenomena of the spiritual life of society. The humanities are systems of knowledge, the subject of which is the spiritual values ​​of society. These may include such social Sciences as: history, philosophy, law, political economy, philology, etc. The sciences that belong to the natural and humanitarian groups are equal among themselves, since each solves its own problems. These two groups of sciences have both original features and differences in the methods and objects used. Differences in the objects of research in the natural and human sciences for a long time led to the denial of the significance of certain methods of natural science for humanitarian cultures. But in last years scientists in the humanities began to apply the methods of natural science in their research. Thus, the confrontation is replaced by mutual understanding and mutual use of the methods of cultures.

The specificity of the natural science culture lies in the fact that knowledge about nature is constantly being improved, different a high degree objectivity. Represents the most reliable layer of the array of human knowledge, which has great importance for the existence of man and society. And besides this, it is deeply specialized knowledge. The significance of humanitarian culture lies in the fact that knowledge about the system of value dependencies in society is activated based on the individual's belonging to a certain social group. The problem of truth is solved taking into account the knowledge about the object and the assessment of the usefulness of this knowledge by the cognizing or consuming subject. The relationship between natural science and humanitarian cultures lies in the fact that, firstly, they have common roots, which are expressed in the needs of the interests of man and mankind in creating optimal conditions for self-development and improvement, and secondly, there is an information exchange modern technologies: the use of mathematical apparatus, computer technology in art, then humanitarian culture influences the definition of priorities in the development of natural science knowledge, forms the theory of knowledge. Also, this relationship is expressed in the fact that these two sciences are interdependent in their development, they also represent different parts of branched scientific knowledge and express the unity of human knowledge of nature and society.

Technical sciences are a complex of sciences that study phenomena important for the development of technology, or it itself (studies the technosphere). Huge contribution to development technical sciences made by the great engineers of antiquity: Archimedes, Heron, Papp Leonardo da Vinci, Vitruvius. One of the first technical sciences was mechanics, which for a long time existed in the shadow of physics, and architecture. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, there has been a need for the academic study of engineering and technology. One of the first educational institutions in the field of technical sciences was the Polytechnic School of Gaspard Monge, founded in 1794. The scientization of engineering knowledge began. In the 19th century, electrical engineering appeared, and in the 20th century, radio engineering, astronautics, robotics, and so on.

Technical sciences occupy an intermediate position, since technology is a product of the human spirit and does not occur in nature, but, nevertheless, it is subject to the same objective laws as natural objects. It includes items such as:

Mechanics is the science of motion and the forces that cause motion. In a narrow sense, it is a technical science that emerged from applied physics. The limiting cases of mechanics are celestial mechanics (mechanics of motion of celestial bodies and gravity) and quantum mechanics (mechanics of elementary particles and other small bodies).

Electrical engineering is a technical science that studies the receipt, distribution, transformation and use of electrical energy.

Nuclear energy is the energy produced by nuclear fission and used to do useful work.

The development not only of technical science, but also of all others led to a scientific and technological revolution, as a result of which science itself as a whole became a productive force and began to conquer nature and man himself as part of nature with great success.

She brought man into space, gave him a new source of energy (atomic), new substances and technical means(laser), new media of communication and information, etc.

Based on the foregoing, it can be concluded that the this moment science as a whole has become not only a means of solving the problems of human existence, but also a part of culture that contains a certain amount of knowledge about the world around us.

The sciences of man, his life in society. They arose during the times and within the framework of scholasticism. Philosophy was defined first as the science of human actions. The source and means of knowledge in such sciences was the word and thoughts and their interpretation. Now to…… Fundamentals of spiritual culture ( encyclopedic Dictionary teacher)

Encyclopedia of Sociology

HUMANITARIAN SCIENCES- see Human knowledge. Big psychological dictionary. Moscow: Prime EUROZNAK. Ed. B.G. Meshcheryakova, acad. V.P. Zinchenko. 2003 ... Great Psychological Encyclopedia

HUMANISM, HUMANITARIAN SCIENCES The sciences and arts, the study of which leads to the harmonious development of a person's mental and moral powers. In the Middle Ages, classical languages ​​\u200b\u200band their literatures were revered as such, to which mainly ... ... Dictionary foreign words Russian language

Humanitarian sciences- social sciences (history, political economy, philology, etc.) in contrast to the natural and technical sciences. Oddly enough, the humanities for the most part study predominantly non-humanoid processes ... Theoretical aspects and basics environmental problem: interpreter of words and idiomatic expressions

HUMANITARIAN SCIENCES- in a broad sense, the science of all products of human activity (the science of culture). In a more special sense, the science of the products of the spiritual creative activity man (the science of the spirit). They are distinguished from the natural sciences that study nature, ... ... Philosophy of Science: Glossary of Basic Terms

Humanitarian sciences- (from Latin humanitas human nature, education) social sciences that study a person and his culture (as opposed to natural and technical sciences) ... Research activities. Dictionary

HUMANITARIAN SCIENCES- English. humanities; German Humanwissenschaften. Sciences that study the phenomena of culture in their various manifestations and development (for example, literature); G. n., with an emphasis on social. the nature of human activity and his works, are societies, sciences ... ... Explanatory Dictionary of Sociology

Humanitarian sciences- Philosophy, art criticism, literary criticism ... Sociology: a dictionary

division of social and human sciences into social and human sciences- DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL HUMANITIES INTO SOCIAL AND HUMANITIES A methodological approach based on the heterogeneity of the sciences of man and society and problematizing the concept of "social humanities". On the one hand, there is... ... Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

Books

• Russian professorship (XVIII - early XX century). Humanitarian sciences. Biographical Sciences. Volume 1. A-I, V. A. Volkov, M. V. Kulikova, V. S. Loginov. The volume contains biographies of professors who have held higher educational institutions Russia humanitarian departments- theologians, historians, philologists, philosophers, economists and linguists. Peculiarity…
• Humanities Univ. enc. schoolboy, Arranged in alphabetical order, encyclopedic articles on history, regional studies, art, social sciences and other humanities will not only help schoolchildren ...

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Before talking about the two types of sciences - the humanities and natural sciences, let's talk about the environment in which they arose.

The emergence of interest in the structure of society

As you probably know, for all living beings with any degree of development who tend to live in groups, group behavior is very essential. In any group of higher animals, a hierarchy is very quickly established: the strongest occupies the main position, the role of "boss" or "leader", and the rest are distributed proportionally own strength or the attitude of this leader towards himself.

It is clear that in such a company no one cares either about how the world works, or about what is good and what is evil. Everyone stands for himself and cares only about food and leaving offspring. And the creature has more opportunities for both the first and the second, the higher it stands on the hierarchical ladder. Therefore, as the creature acquires consciousness, it becomes very interesting for him to find out how the community of his kind works and what needs to be done in order to occupy not the last position in it.

act of kindness

The only exception to this cruel company are females with cubs: their innate behavior programs make them care for helpless cubs so fiercely that the cubs manage to survive and grow into adults even in such a terrible environment.

This is, perhaps, the only situation in the animal world when one can speak of a good (from a human point of view) deed, i.e. about an act in the course of which a being takes care not of itself, but of those close to it. And interest in how the world works is limited to interest in places of possible feeding, in good shelters and dens.

Conscious-subconscious

Here it should be said that the behavior of a modern person, despite all his apparent reasonableness, is determined not only by consciousness, but very much in many ways - by the subconscious. I call the subconscious mind such work of the brain that does not require reflection. For example, when a person walks, or breathes, or eats, he does not need to think about how to take a step, or inhale, or how to chew food. All this is done not by the mind, but by innate programs or, as they are also called, instincts.

However, the mind and innate programs do not exist to fight with each other, but to interact. All animals, not to mention humans, have a place in many programs for voluntary behavior. While we are walking along the road, innate programs, like automata, provide the movements of the legs, arms, body, leaving the mind to do whatever it wants. But in front of a deep puddle on the road, the automatons ask the consciousness: what to do? Consciousness turns on, makes a choice of behavior, a puddle behind. Automata again do not need consciousness.

The hierarchy here is very definite: the subconscious unceremoniously interrupts and switches consciousness as soon as the need arises in consciousness. The conscious mind cannot ask the subconscious mind.

The role of consciousness and subconsciousness

In vertebrates, the role of consciousness is quite definite, although for the most part a small, auxiliary one. As some species have evolved, this role - the role of consciousness - has become more and more expanded and complicated. In the end, these species made up a whole world of intelligent animals - mammals and birds, which are able to perfectly combine innate behavioral programs - instincts - with intelligent actions.

A much larger role of intelligence is "foreseen" in the behavior of great apes, and this turned out to be not very successful: they are all small in number, occupy small territories and are close to extinction. The evolutionary line that led to modern man, which made a much greater bet on intelligence than humanoids. This line most its history, millions of years, eked out an even more miserable existence, and all of its species died out one after another, despite ever larger brains. The fact is that for too long and too much each individual had to learn independently and by imitation. At the same time, successful experiments, outstanding achievements of individuals or groups were quickly lost and forgotten, so that there was no general progress. So it can be said that "providing" a being with consciousness does not lead to the dominance of such a being over others.

Success came only to the species Homo sapiens. What is its advantage over other species that preceded it? Here the answer is clear: he was saved and rescued by speech. It made it possible to learn quickly, accumulate knowledge and pass it on to the next generations in an ever-increasing volume. Extragenetic transfer of new information began to mean more than genetic.

This last fact led to the fact that a person began to get out of the creative influence natural selection: after all, natural selection proceeds according to genetic information, and since it has become secondary, selection is powerless to improve it.

The advent of speech played a very important role in enhancing the intellectual efficiency of the brain. It turned out that the language of speech symbols is much more convenient for the brain than non-verbal thinking, the same as in animals. With the transition to the language basis, the possibilities of the same brain increase tremendously. Thus, the species Homo sapiens managed to squeeze through the "bottleneck" of evolution, in which they got stuck great apes, and Pithecanthropus, Australopithecus and other human species died out.

When modern man arose - a species of homo sapiens - the same innate programs that guided the behavior of his animal ancestors were still very strong in his behavior. However, the emergence modern man greatly contributed to the development of agricultural techniques (about 40 - 50 thousand years ago), which led to a very noticeable weakening of the influence of natural selection as a species-forming factor. It became much easier to survive in agricultural conditions, there was much more food, but the need for collective labor increased markedly - the land for crops had to be cleared of thickets by large teams.

In this regard, representatives of homo sapiens began to think more about the world around them. At the same time, they were primarily interested, of course, in interaction with their own kind. Collective work led to the emergence of the beginnings of friendship, i.e. relations between individuals ceased to be only competitive. The creation of a family gave rise to good feelings of all its members for each other - the concept of care appeared not only among mothers in relation to children, but also among fathers.

Probably, due to the fact that there was much more food (due to the advent of agriculture), a person sometimes began to observe the world around him with some kind of abstract interest. Most likely, it began with the observation of the sun and stars. Of course, primitive man from the very beginning associated the appearance of the sun with heat and light. He saw and remembered that in winter the sun rises lower above the horizon than in summer. But, of course, the causal relationships that he created in this case were far from ours.

Thus, we can say that from the very beginning of the formation of man as a new biological species Homo sapiens, he was interested in two classes of phenomena: natural phenomena, on which the conditions of his existence depended (the onset of light, heat, the appearance of food, etc.), and social phenomena - his relations with members of the community within which he existed. From these two areas of interest, two types of sciences emerged - the humanities and the natural.

The development of interest in these two classes of phenomena subsequently led to the emergence of two essentially different types of sciences: natural and social sciences.

In order to consider both of these types from a certain general point of view, let us consider the concept that unites them - the concept of culture.

Culture is everything that is created by man, as it were, in addition to natural world, albeit based on the latter. This thesis can be clearly illustrated by the well-known ancient argument “about the nature of things”: if you plant an olive cutting in the ground, a new olive will grow. And if you bury a bench made of an olive tree in the ground, then not a bench will grow, but also an olive tree. That is, only the natural basis of this object will be preserved, and the purely human one will disappear.

The world of human culture does not exist next to the natural, but inside it, and therefore is inextricably linked with it. That is why any object of culture can be decomposed into two components - into a natural basis and social content and design.

It is this duality of the world of culture that is ultimately the basis for the emergence of its two types: natural science and humanitarian. The first type deals with the natural properties, connections and relationships of things that "work" in the world of human culture in the form of natural sciences, technical inventions and devices, production technologies, etc. The second type of culture - humanitarian - covers the field of phenomena in which properties, connections are presented and the relationship of the people themselves as social beings in the first place and spiritual in the second place. It includes "human science" sciences (philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, etc.), as well as religion, morality, law, and the like. The presence in a single human culture of two heterogeneous types of description of different aspects of nature became the subject of philosophical analysis as early as the 19th century, at the time of the formation of sciences about the manifestations of the human spirit (the theory of state and law, the study of religion, aesthetics).

Indeed, natural science studies natural things and processes that exist regardless of the existence of a person and are in no way connected with his activity. In contrast to natural science, humanities study the actions of people, their goals and value beliefs. People's actions have a value content, and this value content very often depends on the researcher. We Russians know that Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Hitler did bad things when they attacked Russia. Perhaps the representatives of those nations to which the named characters belong will have the opposite opinion, but this can also be explained.

A situation similar to the one described is described in the wonderful novel by Karel Capek "White Disease".

Such a situation is impossible in the natural sciences. Does the hydrogen atom do badly, connecting with the explosion with the oxygen atom and giving water? Is nitrogen badly supplied, preventing us from breathing in its atmosphere? There are no judgments here: nature is arranged this way and not otherwise, and we just have to remember this.

But there can be no alternative opinions in the natural sciences. Once an explanation has been found and entered the edifice of science, no alternative explanations that differ in essence from the one found can be recognized as correct. As soon as scientific knowledge has received practical application (first they rely on it in the same scientific research, and then, when /if/ it is confirmed, it is used in devices under construction), its truth is checked in each operating device each time this device is turned on. Therefore, when, for example, someone tells you that quantum mechanics is a wrong science and should be replaced by what the speaker came up with, remember those hundreds of millions of lasers operating in the world that provide not only the needs of researchers, but also a huge number of applied tasks, such as writing and reading CDs or cutting synthetic fabrics in garment factories, and don't listen to it.

These two heterogeneous types of cultures in the 20th century created the impression of a growing gap between the people representing each of these types of cultures. It seemed that people belonging to different types of cultures had difficulty understanding each other. And mutual misunderstanding automatically reduces interest and respect for each other, which can lead to conflicts and open hostility.

In the period up to the 20th century, representatives of humanitarian type culture. writers, philosophers, statesmen were famous people, and scientists - mathematicians, physicists, chemists, biologists - seemed to be something like artisans. During the second half of the 19th century, the situation began to change slightly, as the life of the average person began to be determined by the activities of not only the humanities, but also representatives of the natural sciences. Electricity began to play an increasingly prominent role in everyday life, transport was introduced into life, other than horses and sailboats, fast means of communication appeared - telegraph, telephone, radio.

The 20th century was radically new in this sense. And although the general picture of the history of the 20th century also largely depended on the activities of humanitarians - diplomats, military leaders, writers - nevertheless, the contribution of representatives of the natural sciences turned out to be monstrously impressive. The methods of warfare have changed so much that for the first time mankind was afraid for the fate of the whole world: in the second half of the twentieth century there were more than enough reasons for world wars, but none of them led to a real armed conflict. Einstein's words were in everyone's mind: shortly after World War II, a correspondent asked him what he thought would be the dominant weapon in World War III. Einstein replied that he could not say anything about the third, but the fourth would probably contain stone axes, and maybe bows and arrows.

In addition to weapons, the twentieth century brought a lot of new things to civilian life. The advent of televisions, computers, lasers, mobile phones, impressive discoveries in cosmogony and biology - all this led to a radical reassessment of the work of representatives of the natural sciences. The remarkable poet of that time, Vadim Shefner, wrote with some bewilderment:

Something physics is held in high esteem,

Something of the lyrics in the paddock.

It's not a simple calculation

It's a matter of world law.

Appeared in the 60s, this poem became a kind of symbol of that time, a symbol of the reassessment of the role of representatives of humanitarian activities and the natural sciences.

If we continue the classification of sciences further, it can be noted that among the natural sciences there are exact sciences, which allow, in principle, to obtain the exact result of the problem being solved. These include mathematics, physics, chemistry. Biology, geology, geography and some other natural sciences are not exact, although they are natural.

In addition, the development of physics and chemistry led to the emergence a large number applied, technical sciences, such as strength of materials, structural mechanics, quantum electronics and others. The business of these sciences is to ensure the practical application of the new results of physics and chemistry. These sciences are entirely based on the conclusions drawn by the fundamental sciences, and confirm the correctness of these conclusions in each new working practical application.

Therefore, I want to emphasize once again: our confidence in the scientific results obtained by our predecessors is based not on the fact that we are illiterate or lazy and do not want to revise supposedly outdated dogmas, but on the fact that the conclusions of these sciences have long been used by various kinds of applied sciences and are confirmed by the impeccable operation of instruments and systems based on certain results.

A person engaged in the humanitarian sphere, of course, is not able to know the natural sciences with the degree of detail with which they are known to professionals, but the main conclusions, the results that determine the current picture of the world, should be known to everyone in order to avoid gross mistakes in their activities. . For they say that we need the exact sciences in order to successfully achieve the goals set by the representatives of the humanities.