Science is a method for evaluating how reliable your prediction methods are by means of referencing the external world. [UPDATE -- added the word methods -- very important]
Disqualifiers:
If there's no prediction of an unknown...it isn't science.
If there's no data collection AFTER the prediction, it's not science.
If the data collection doesn't change your probability distribution, it's not science (or it's a bad experiement).
Suspiciousness:
If the experiment isn't designed to disconfirm, it's suspicious as science.
If there are no error bars...it's suspicious as science
If there's no bayesian updating from priors...it's suspicious as science.
If there are no qualifiers...it's suspicious as science.
Here, for instance, is health science.
Contrast with this "climate science", or most macro.
UPDATED THE ONE SENTENCE.
UPDATED THE ONE SENTENCE.
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4 comments:
Thus per your definition String Theory is not science. Which is fine, as I've always said that it was "Cool Math" not science.
However, you have placed cosmology in an awkward place.
Cosmology is a science like history is a science. Eventually a prediction pops out, and you can test.
If Big Bang, then background radiation. Find background radiation -- therefore big bang is a more reliable hypothesis.
If gravity-lensing, then you can weigh the planets... voila... weights are as measured by lensing are same and at almost the precision of Voyager 2.
I think the super-interesting stuff is actually trying to get predictions from measuring devices.
In that sense computer science is not science, and politics is.
http://e1saman.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/what-is-science/
Elias,
Welcome to mi casa. I had a friend whose dad was named Elias when I was in high school.
Computer Science clearly isn't science. It's engineering.
And I don't know how you take politics as a science. I don't think they make much for predictions...but you are probably thinking about it differently than I do.
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