The Evolutionary Nature of Science and Mechanisms of Forming Scientific Knowledge
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/sofs2026.01.097Keywords:
evolutionary nature of science, epistemological mechanisms, disciplinary formation, transdisciplinarity, evolutionary cybernetics, knowledge industrialization, scientific knowledge formation, knowledge evolution, scientific paradigms.Abstract
The paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the evolutionary nature of science, treating scientific knowledge not as a static set of theories but as a dynamic process unfolding through cognitive, social, informational, and cybernetic mechanisms. The emergence of new scientific fields and disciplines results from multi-level evolutionary processes in which changes in methods of cognition, formalization, and scientific organization follow regular patterns. The aim is to explain mechanisms of scientific knowledge formation. Methods: historical-epistemological analysis and conceptual phase modeling. The work clarifies the epistemological and methodological foundations of scientific development, revealing the historical and epistemological logic of transitions from natural philosophical forms through differentiated sciences to integrative and transdisciplinary paradigms. A multi-phase evolutionary model is proposed that describes science's development through successive stages: empirical articulation, conceptual-theoretical initiation, formal constructivization, disciplinary structuring, institutional stabilization, transdisciplinary convergence, and industrial knowledge implementation. Science is interpreted as an evolutionary adaptive and information-cybernetic system, where variation manifests through generation of alternative hypotheses, selection occurs through theory competition, and inheritance operates via educational institutions and scientific schools. An information-algorithmic approach reveals theories as data-compression mechanisms and scientific development as an optimization process in an entropic landscape of possible explanations. The work identifies social, technological, and infrastructural factors determining scientific evolution trajectories. The significance of knowledge industrialization — the complete cycle of transforming fundamental theories into technologies and social practices — is emphasized. Based on this integration of results, the feasibility of establishing Evolutionary Cybernetics as a new scientific field is substantiated as a metatheoretical framework combining evolutionary, informational, and cybernetic mechanisms of scientific development.
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