Hi Jesse & ASC

I asked the ASC-list a similar question in 2008 and had an enthusiastic flood of responses ­ including (now that I look back at them) one from you. I¹m going to send you the replies I received off-list (I found them quite interesting), and I can make these available to anyone else who¹d like to see them.

Below is the summary I posted to the list at the time…

Dear ASC   I had many more responses to my request for a definition of science than I expected. As quite a few of them were off-list, I’ve put together a summary.   Many of the definitions mentioned the things that scientists should conduct or value: – tests – objectivity – reproducibility – experiments – observations – a systematic process   the outcomes of scientific study included: – increased understanding – discoveries – falsifiable theories. – knowledge – the ability to make predictions – facts   and the subject matter that scientists study can be  – stuff – things – processes – the universe and its contents – the physical world   >> Other responses (particularly from philosophers of science) pointed out that >> that these are aspirations or intentions of science, but that science is “a >> heterogeneous blob”. Some branches of the blob regard things to be >> scientific even if they only include some of the aspects or outcomes listed >> above and this is particularly the case when very big or small objects or >> very complex systems are being studied.   >> I think that this is not a futile exercise (as many people suggested) because >> I’m sure that there are things that chemists, microbiologists, zoologists, >> astrophysicists and climatologists do that make them all scientists   >> I’ve put this together in a way that (I hope) avoids the idea that science >> generates absolute truth or reality, is useful for students and simple enough >> to go into a curriculum document. I think it will be valid for most >> scientists…that work on this universe.   >> “Science aims to systematically investigate, improve understanding and make >> predictions about our universe and the things and processes in it”.

I welcome your comments, and I’d like to thank all the people who replied to my first email.      

Regards

Mick.

  Mick Moylan Chemistry Outreach Fellow Victorian Institute for Chemical Sciences School of Chemistry University of Melbourne, VIC, 3010 Australia p +61 (0)3 83446465 f +61 (0)3 93475180 e mmoylan@unimelb.edu.au