Science is a candidate for a nonserving sphere, but is it different from technology at all? Isn't it but a form of technology that has not yet become conscious of its true task? In fact, it is difficult today to distinguish them, because much work done under the title of science is in fact technology. Traditionally, they have been thus distinguished: Natural science explains the processes of nature; other sciences explain other parts or aspects of the world. Technology does not explain but uses the knowledge of science for controlling nature without asking why it is able to control. Natural science explains natural processes in a way that allows controlling them but gives an understanding of nature that technology lacks. I'll argue that this distinction is right.

The prevailing view of what scientific explanation is has been expounded by Hempel, Oppenheim, Popper, and other philosophers of science. We explain an event (an explanandum) if we deduce it (more exactly its description) from, first, one or more laws of nature and, second, the (description of the) “antecedent” conditions – that is, the conditions that preceded the explanandum. This view takes account of the fact that explanations often consist of no more than deductions of the explananda from laws and antecedent conditions. Yet it neglects that very often knowledge of laws and of antecedent conditions allows exact predictions but gives no understanding at all. Richard Feynman, one of the best experts on quantum mechanics, asserted: “I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.”