In recent years the term Data Science has become quite popular. Let it be clear from the start: nothing against data science! Quite the opposite, everything in favor! I am a great enthusiast of this incredible area of contemporary knowledge production.

However, I feel that the intense popularization of the term often gives the impression that Science is an almost "monolithic" activity that simply generates knowledge from data processed by algorithms, and that is it. I also know that data scientists do not defend this argument.

And then, when we look at Science as a whole, we can ask: what defines it? What is knowledge made of?

The rigorous and systematic use of METHODS is one of the few possible consensuses I noticed among the different disciplines of methodology and research I studied during my undergraduate and master's years, with different professors from different sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, political science, and also philosophy.

These distinct disciplines and sciences are quite complementary, yet the debate about what knowledge is and how we can reach it is strong at the level of the theory of knowledge and science. These are very uneven perspectives on human life, even if they become complementary when we start connecting the dots.

After all, what are scientific methods?

Scientific methods are paths walked with the help of sets of protocols aimed at obtaining new knowledge or updating an existing corpus of knowledge. In short, they are paths considered valid by a community of people (scientists) for the systematic gathering of verifiable empirical evidence and the production of explanations about observed phenomena. To do so, systematic observations are carried out that culminate in the production of data (useful and legible records) about any phenomenon of interest, in any of the different dimensions of life. Or, as in the deductive method, one makes use of reasoning logics, such as the syllogism.

Logic itself is a fundamental component of a good method. As Science is not a monolithic activity, but rather plural, there are different types of scientific methods. And that is good, because the world itself is very diverse and plural, and to capture all this breadth, nothing better than different ways of producing knowledge in a rigorous and systematic manner.

Among the different types of scientific method, according to the philosophy of science, we can highlight the most well known:

I. Inductive method: knowledge produced from the observation of different particular cases that are abstracted into general explanations. II. Deductive method: knowledge produced from "pure" reasoning, starting from general statements that are verified in particular cases. III. Dialectical method: knowledge produced from the contrast between two contrary ideas. Knowledge is the result of this contrast. IV. Phenomenological method: the given phenomenon is the only thing that exists; the knowledge produced from this perspective seeks to move away from laws, theories, and deductions. The description and understanding of the phenomenon itself is the source of knowledge.

In general terms, and simplifying a little, scientific methods follow a flow that goes from observation to theory and vice versa. Along the way we record (as data) the facts and events of reality. We analyze them and then produce testable and falsifiable hypotheses that may or may not become a theory, and by theory read: explanation about a given theme or phenomenon.

This kind of "cycle" repeats, and knowledge is thus renewed when new hypotheses that contradict or complement prevailing theories are tested and understood as true, until other new hypotheses arise. Feeding the cycle: observation, hypothesis, thesis.

Methods, therefore, are the paths that allow us to walk this cycle of knowledge production with systematicity, conferring reliability and intelligibility to this continuous process of creation, validation, and invalidation of hypotheses and theories.

Science is, therefore, a living and dynamic activity. What is true today may not be tomorrow and vice versa. And knowledge is reached by different paths, made by a composition between methods, logic, observations, and contrasting ideas, explanations, and perspectives.