Science is basically the body of knowledge about reality, a.k.a The summation of science in a line
.No, of course it isn't just that, in Science, there are theories, concepts, and other sort of terms to explain things, now, let's just start with what isn't Science.
Science...
1. Doesn't have proof, it relies only on evidence, which can only made by observations or experiments. Mathematical Proofs only applies in Mathematics. There have been many Theorems in Science that have been disproved not because it's mathematically inconsistent but because reality doesn't agree with it.
2. Is not a religion, sorry guys, but science doesn't have any dogmas. If you can disprove anything in science with the support of reality, you're very welcomed to do so, but if you doubt anything in science because of your lack of knowledge or because of your own dogmas, you're very welcomed to deny gravity and jump right out of a Plane in 30,000 ft.
3. Constantly change, change is the only thing constant in science, but, on every change made in science, it made it stronger and more accurate to describe reality, on for the present, it's not the concepts of science that change, but only the trivial details of it, such as what is the value of Planck's Constant which is accurate to the 10^-50, but not the central concepts in the theories. Or in other words, Science Evolves.
4. Is not a bunch of geeks hanging around, I don't think I ever known any real scientists who wear pocket protectors, but yes, some of them do really have very thick spectacles.
And the methodology of science is this
1. You describe/define the problem which you're trying to solve, e.g. Why is the value of G is constant?
2. You make the hypothesis, which is an educated guess, e.g. Because the gravitons in all parts of the universe hold the same amount of energy.
3. Experiment/Observation, e.g. You flew a spacecraft and take some numbers to determine the G on Mars, Jupiter, Andromeda, M31, etc.
4. Peer Review, Do any other scientists, including the one who oppose you found substantially the same results?
5. Conclusion, if your hypothesis passed all the Experiments/Observation by Peer Review, then it becomes a solid Theory until new evidences contradicts it, of which if millions of evidences already supports it, then the probability of a new evidence contradicts the Theory is unimaginably low.
If you have read this, and then keep saying that Gravity/Evolution/blah, is only a theory, you will be bashed by me or other scientists/scientists in training.
But on the other end, saying that the "String Theory" is a theory is a big, huge mistake, there's currently no evidence in reality that supports it, only mathematical proofs, therefore, it should be named "String Theorem".
And after theories, there are Concepts and Laws
A Law, is not an ultimate answer in science, it is defined, at least by my lecturers, as the regularity in the world, such as every body of mass attracts each other, hence The Newtonian Law of Gravity, but Laws doesn't explain why that happened, that's why Einstein's Theory of Relativity is highly appraised for its explanation of Gravity.
Concepts, is you know, concepts, I still don't quite find the word to explain it.
I'll edit this when I have an idea about the concepts.
