The knowledge of nature is studied through different approaches and as a whole. It is known by a generic name: the natural sciences. In a synthetic way, we can highlight the main branches of the natural sciences: biology, astronomy , geology, chemistry and physics. The great areas of the natural sciences have, in turn, a complex subdivision. Thus, if we take biology as a reference, we will find a wide variety of specific areas of this discipline ( zoology , botany, medicine, environmental sciences, oceanography and a multitude of branches and sub-branches of all knowledge of life).
In recent decades, the natural sciences have undergone a major transformation: a process of specialization and another of knowledge fusion.
from general to particular
The first philosophers of antiquity began to think of nature (in Greek physis) as a whole. It must be taken into account that there was still no clear idea of what science was. Over time, the study of nature has specialized and in this sense it is important to indicate two fundamental aspects in the understanding of nature: the first classification of living beings carried out by Aristotle and the study of nature in its various disciplines through the scientists of the period Hellenistic. With these two contributions, the study of nature began a slow process of specialization. This idea can be illustrated with a specific area of the natural sciences: medicine.
Hipócrates lived in Greece, in the V century; C, and is considered the father of Medicine. His proposals were aimed at health especially to cure diseases globally, in other words, he established the general principles of medical science. Over time, medical knowledge has not stopped specializing in several areas, for example, the ophthalmologist of decades ago specialized today in specific pathologies of a part of the human eye and the same process happened with several branches of medicine.
The fusion of knowledge in Natural Sciences
The various natural sciences are not isolated compartments, but they have connections among themselves and even connections with areas of knowledge in the social sciences. Thus, we are faced with disciplines that represent a synthesis of two independent areas (biochemistry and astrobiology or biotechnology). At the same time, there are cases of fusion between the natural and the social , for example, sociobiology.
The fusion of two independent areas of knowledge is a reality that obeys the need for collaboration between different sciences, which nowadays is known as an interdisciplinary approach. But it is logical that this is so, as the same subject can be understood from different disciplines, for example, a population can be studied through sociology and genetics or by a criterion that unifies both branches of knowledge.
