FAQs

Not all activity trying to generate knowledge can be called science.  There are many other legitimate ways to generate knowledge that are not scientific.  Yet science has proven itself over centuries to be unparallelled in the successful generation of knowledge.  No other way can claim the kind of spectacular success that science has demonstrated.

The question is of course what sets science apart from other ways of knowledge generation - what makes it so successful?

We have studied this for more than 10 years and have identified a number of features that faclitate the productiveness of science in knowledge generation.  In addition to these features, there is also a specific way of going about knowledge generation that makes science so successful.  This way is encapsulated in what we call the scientific capability features.

Together the scientific productiveness features and the scientific capability features form the basis for the spectacular success of science.  By understanding what they are and how they feature in the environment you serve with your research and scientific work, you can improve your capability and the service you offer significantly.  These two sets of features are valid for all the branches of science, and engaging them appropriately therefore serves as the backbone for meaningful and successsful cross-disciplinary scientific work.

Van Thinking provides an ebook describing the background information about these features and what they are in more detail.  Their online course in scientific thinking is also based on this approach.

It is almost like saying you need to know which building blocks are best,  and you also need to know how to best build with them in order to be the best builder.