I think this is a weak comment that misuses the term science. > The author, directly or indirectly, lumps politicians like Bill Clinton and for-profit business

I think this is a weak comment that misuses the term science. > The author, directly or indirectly, lumps politicians like Bill Clinton and for-profit business like Scripps into the “science” boat, which in my opinion, is bad reporting. The author is referring to the use of "science-style" as a rhetorical device: something that is possible due to the trust earned by boring science. The above comment falls for using science-style as rhetoric too: 0) It begins by saying "weak and unscientific", yet the comment itself is not scientific in any sense that should allow it to make a claim such as "unscientific". It is worth asking: what does it mean for something to be unscientific? 1) The post's description of science ("assume nothing is true, and seeks truth by testing") is extremely simplistic even by high school standards. A slightly less simplistic outline of the process would be: i. (hypothesizing) the forging of observations and experience into a hypothesis (i.e. a story which can be tested), ii. (testing) using the hypothesis to predict likely outcomes, and then comparing those predictions with observations, iii. (full-circle) going back to step i. In particular: there is a fractal like nature to the above, in that one can choose to examine scientifically any part of the process above. For example, doing so with step i. might lead one to forming Bayesian ideas. Takeaway 1: the process of science itself is not necessarily scientific. Whether something is "scientific" is not necessarily a black and white "yes or no". Takeaway 2: an important first step in science is to forge experiences and assumptions into a testable story. This has nothing to do with "assume nothing is true". On the contrary, it has the purpose of becoming aware of assumptions (a never ending process) by providing a bundle of assumptions (the story), which can be carefully teased apart (the testing). Science therefore, is about examining our assumptions. That we learn to become wary of assumptions that we are aware of, by engaging in the process of science, is neither here nor there, as far as the scientific process is concerned. Takeaway 3: the question "how scientific?" is non-scientific. Put differently, if we were to ask "can a process be more scientific?" the answer is always "yes". 2) Therefore: that the original post provides one or two examples does not imply anything about the pervasiveness of the issue (or lack thereof), as is implied by the phrase "a small list of gaffs". That the original author attempts to use their observations and experience to form a story is non-scientific, not unscientific. Whether or not the original author's story could be turned into a scientific question is irrelevant to the story they are telling, as the answer to that for every story is "yes". 3) There is a cost to doing science. It takes time, and effort. People cannot be expected to engage in science 100% of the time (nor would we want them to, if they could). Therefore, the non-scientific is not unscientific, and it is a blatant misuse of science to say that the non-scientific is unscientific, because: 4) Arguably, to say that someone's description/experience is "unscientific" is actually unscientific, because it declines observation-data, without ruling it out scientifically. In this particular case, consider Scripps: i. its use of "Institute" (in the past) and (today) "Research" in its name ii. its use of ".edu" in its URL iii. it is non-profit (not for-profit as the above post claims) iv. it does also engage in useful science (it has 2000+ scientists, and 150+ laboratories) v. it produces bullshit too, like many other scientific institutions (e.g. MIT) These points begin to form a story in one's head: perhaps a story about how some can choose to clothe themselves in science-style, or perhaps a story about how being a scientist does not free one from being human. I don't think it is unscientific to claim that Scripps is only one of many institutes ("institutes"?) which has the above characteristics. Nor is it unscientific to say that in modern America, businesses do have outsized influence on institutions which should have been non-business oriented, as is evidenced by the fact that "non-profit" means very little as far as "scientific" or "unbiased" is concerned. On the other hand, none of the above is scientific either. Does that matter? No. If we cared to, we could be more scientific about it all. That we might not care to has more to do with a variety of other factors (e.g. time, energy, motivation, sickness, etc.) that have nothing to do with un-science. E.g. of a scientific fact: I am not going to be scientific when I need to react quickly. 5) Stop silencing scientists who are pointing out the hijacking of science by business and politics. They're engaging in the scientific process by allowing us to form a hypothesis which we might eventually test. More importantly, they're engaging in being human, by sharing with us a story that we might otherwise be utterly unaware of.