Final answer:
The ultimate goal of science includes description, explanation, prediction, and control, aiming to deeply understand the natural world to improve our ability to predict and potentially control future phenomena.
Step-by-step explanation:
The ultimate goal of science is a subject of great discussion, but generally, it can be encapsulated by a series of interrelated aims including description, explanation, prediction, and control. These goals help to advance our understanding of the natural world by providing testable explanations or hypotheses that can predict future phenomena. Such hypotheses, when vigorously tested and supported by evidence, can build towards scientific theories, which are broader explanations that unify a large body of evidence and observations.
The scientific method underpins this process through step-by-step procedures involving observation, experimentation, and refining hypotheses. The better a hypothesis is at making predictions, the more likely it is to be useful and correct. Over time, theories may be refined into scientific laws, which are universally true concise descriptions of the relationships within the universe.
In essence, while science aims for a variety of outcomes, it seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of the natural world that can help us to predict and, ideally, control aspects of the universe to improve our lives and solve problems. The true goal encompasses all these aspects, but if one had to be chosen, it is the explanation of phenomena that allows for all the others to follow.