Scientific community

The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science (for example there is a robotics community within the field of computer science).

Members of the same community do not need to work together. Communication between the members is established by disseminating research work and hypotheses through articles in peer reviewed journals or by attending conferences where new research is presented and ideas exchanged and discussed.

The scientific method implicitly necessitates the existence of the scientific community, wherein the processes of peer review and reproducibility are undertaken. It is the scientific community that recognizes and supports the current consensus within the field: the reigning paradigm, and which properly resists change until repeated and substantial evidence demands a paradigm shift.