Science And scientists
The man in the street has a very fair idea of the meaning of the word science.
It includes, he feels, such pursuits as astronomy , chemistry ,biology . he is not so sure whether engineering or medicine is science , and is quiet sure that politics, history, art, religion, and the like are not.
The scientist is more interested in doing scientific work than in defining it. He sometimes says that a piece of work or a book is ‘unscientific’ and he usually means by the phrase that it is inexact; that is badly arranged; that it jumps to conclusions without sufficient evidence, or that the author has allowed his personal prejudices to influence his report. By scientific work, then, we mean that which is as exact as is possible, orderly in arrangement, and based on sound and sufficient evidence. Moreover, it must have no object except to find out the truth.
Perhaps science is most clearly defined by saying, that it is firstly a vast collection of facts expressed in exact and unambiguous language in such a manner that any one who cares to take the trouble can test their truth; and secondly a collection of rules or laws which express the connection between these facts. This does not sound very interesting but it is extremely important. As long as men hunted for knowledge in a random sort of way and believed each other's assertions without testing them, knowledge made negligible progress. Once they began to make sure that their facts were right by doing experiment for themselves, science began to grow.