07/07/2025
I was actually writing a different post about hypothesis testing (still in drafts) and this point came up in the introduction. I realized that I don't really have a solid answer to this question. I have a vague idea of what all is "scientific", but I don't have a definition per se. In this post, I'll try to converge in on the answer as best as I can, but I get the feeling that the answer will be inadequate and I will have to return to this post multiple times over the years tighten it more and more.
As soon as I think about science, the following things come to mind:
- curiosity
- observation
- data
- hypotheses
- experiment
- modelling
- testing
- analysis
- descriptive v/s predictive
Science, the way I see it, is an exercise in modelling 'systems'. One wonders(curiosity) about the world around them(systems) and tries to understand it(model them) to the best of their abilities. One constructs hypotheses(falsifiable empirical claims) based on the models, which are rigorously tested through well designed experiments followed by data acquisition and analysis. We either reject or fail to reject these hypotheses to generate provisional knowledge (in science, we can never have the final truth) that is epistemically justified (justified through evidence and a process of interpreting that evidence).
I know this is too wordy, but for now this is the closes to a definition that I can get to.
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