Define 'science'. Don't look it up online....from your own brain, define it. [I Love Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream]

@Tsondru Here I am just asking for a definition of 'science'. It isn't a a method.
Method is a 'how'. I am asking for the 'what' -- a definition. The term 'scientific method' would come out of that definition and is a topic for another thrilling thread.

I like your comment about there being other methods.

@uncleshawn I understand.

A made the choice to give a how definition because science is an intellectual commitment, a process, a skill, an orientation to the world, a perspective, a mindset.

@uncleshawn
Science is a method (to be precise, a methodology... a set of methods) for asking the universe questions and knowing how much confidence we can have in the answers.

@newjaninev2 The scientific method is a method. 'Science' is the 'thing' that spawns the scientific method. In the latter part of your reply you are getting kind of toward a definition of 'science'. Science is.... Just looking for a definition. There are some here in this thread.

@uncleshawn If you’re trying to say ‘curiosity’ or some such, then just say so... my morning is too busy to play ‘I’m thinking of a number...'

Science is the methodology, and cannot be separated from that methodology without becoming something different to, and less than, science.

@uncleshawn Scientist here. What @newjaninev2 and I gave as a method is as good as it gets.

If one doesn’t leave it as a method one is probably committing a category error somewhere.

@newjaninev2 Right, a thing cannot be separated from the methodology of that thing, but they are not the same thing, by definition. It is a logical error that non-separation means they are the same thing. But anyway, use your idea that 'science' is the 'scientific method'. It is a method to try to find what exactly? For example, a 'scientific claim' is a claim about what? The answer to this is a more fundamental thing than the scientific method. That's the whole point here -- to get to the most fundamental starting point of what this is about. An answer to this gets at the question of what the definition of what science is.

@Tsondru If that is the definition of science -- a method -- then it can't make truth claims. It is the concept behind the method that allows for the method that presumably makes truth claims. I am getting at something more fundamental. And I know that many 'scientists' have trouble getting at it, or are unware that they have never gotten to it. ....Making a claim that one thing is true, and another is not, because of a method is weak beyond belief. What is the idea behind the method? There are definitions of 'science' -- and you will come to one if you follow this trail -- but this is pretty normal....to find that 'scientists' actually do not have a good definition for 'science'. They have assumptions that are fundamental to their claims, but are either unaware of them or simply will not look at them.

@uncleshawn Have you seen an electron? Has anyone?

BOOM. That is why I describe it as a method.

Yet I can measure one’s mass, spin, magnetic moment, verify that it is a point particle, it’s probability if tunneling through a potential barrier, measure the energy when it’s annihilated by a positron. But I can’t see it.

@uncleshawn Focusing on science as method is precisely what keeps one from making unreasonable truth claims.

Is an electron a particle? Sure. I can make it act ballistically. Is it a wave? Sure. I can make it diffract. Is it both? Sure. I can do that too.

@Tsondru boom? That an electron has never been seen demonstrates that 'science' and 'scientific method' are the same thing?

Let me assist. Here are some standard modern definitions....

the careful study of the structure and behaviour of the physical world, especially by watching, measuring, and doing experiments, and the development of theories to describe the results of these activities (short: the study of the physical world)

a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws....this one is problematic but at least is a definition

systematized knowledge in general....this one close to the original meaning.

@uncleshawn Do you actually have anything to say about your own question, or do you wish to merely make vague, non-commital, allusions?

I was initially wondering what you were trying to say, but now I’m wondering what you’re trying not to say

As I said, my morning is too busy to play ‘I’m thinking of a number'

@Tsondru Please don't take offense when I say that you are missing something fundamental that you need to define and that with such a view of 'science' as you currently present the notion of making truths is on extremely shaky ground -- claims on what is and is not real, or true, or provable. There is a layer of assumptions in your reply electron, particle, wave....and these assumptions are the kind of thing I am getting at. It was a simple question: define 'science'.

@uncleshawn
Science makes none of those claims

@newjaninev2 I posted three definitions of 'science' above. Standard definitions.

This post simply asks a question. I wanted to see if anyone could define it -- which is a necessity if one is to make truth claims (and then truth claims about what specific set of 'things). There are several points that come out of all of this, but it is not my intention to get into them here. I just wanted to see if anyone could answer the question, which should have been easy for anyone who says things like, "Science proves blahblah" and "Science disproves blahblah". Am using the Socratic method. If the term cannot even be defined, or not defined coherently, then there is a big problem for those who like to make truth claims.

That's all. Very simple, and very fundamental, and very important. A tiny seed for thought, maybe.

@uncleshawn Your model assumes there is a physical reality that is wholly knowable. In truth much of the universe may be unobservable, and what is observable may be unknowable because of limits of complexity. Evidence is that is likely true.

I am actually making the fewest assumptions here by sticking to science as method. Why? Because I know exactly where my methodology fails. And Without committing to an ersatz model of reality.

@newjaninev2 I and everyone else reads and hears of such claims all the time -- from "scientists", and from "non-scientists" (these terms are horrible but I will use them) who say "scientists" have proven this and that thing that is real and factual and true.

@uncleshawn
Science, as I said, doesn’t make truth claims... which leaves your definitions without any basis, I suppose

@newjaninev2 Thank you. The sign so somebody actually professionally trained as a scientist.

@uncleshawn I am not responsible for the misconceptions spread by the media, the religious, the uninformed, or the just plain careless.

The fact remains that science doesn’t make truth claims, and science certainly never tries to prove anything

@newjaninev2 Yes. This.

@Tsondru Well, I think you are missing the more fundamental stuff underneath that determines whether or not that which lies above it can make truth claims, but I'll leave it alone.

I do not believe that physical reality is all there is and have not made any claim that anything is totally knowable. I do not believe in Empiricism, which is self-contradictory. I was wondering how people define 'science', since truth claims are made using the word 'science' all the time. That's all.

It's actually Empiricism that I was hoping to get at. I thought someone might try to define 'science' as 'Empiricism', which I think is a common idea in the field of 'science. Anyway, if nothing else was food for thought. I appreciate your comments and commend your understanding that one must limit their assumptions as much as possible. I think that most people, including "scientists", usually miss many of their assumptions, especially fundamental ones.

@newjaninev2 I didn't prove my own definition....just quoted three standard ones.

@uncleshawn
Which is obviously not science, because science doesn’t make truth claims.


Which is why we have the scientific methodology.

Science is the best way we have to avoid fooling others and, more importantly, to avoid fooling ourselves.

Some, however, would prefer to do both, and they therefore resent science

@Tsondru Ideas are fundamental to everything. No one has to be "trained in science" to have correct thinking that is the basis of whether someone can make claims about something. Empiricism is a good example -- a self-contradictory idea and therefore false. A person doesn't have to design rockets to have, for example, logic, or to know that the fewer assumptions the firmer ground a person stands on. This is the realm of general knowledge. And that is why the question of the definition of 'science'.