> a non-trivial scientific result that was meaningful in any way I assume you mean non-trivial and meaningful to society and to the progress of human knowledge

> a non-trivial scientific result that was meaningful in any way I assume you mean non-trivial and meaningful to society and to the progress of human knowledge. My whole point is that those properties are not necessary to doing 'science'. What I do is non-trivial and meaningful to me and sometimes to people I know, to a few people on the Internet, and/or to my community or co-workers. Though sometimes the data is trivial even to me, and still it's a joy, the joy of exploration and curiosity. Also, there are infinite questions beneath the threshold of professional science costs that can be investigated (and some of those are just hyper-local questions). Science doesn't have to be big and globally meaningful. That stuff is very important, but that's not all there is - not nearly. Just do science - just do it and stop debating if and the semantics - do some experimentation, with some hacked objectivity, controls, etc. It's a powerful tool: what you discover when you actually try it, whatever it is, will change your perspective, will raise new questions, and will lift up your mind and spirits, guaranteed. I know so much more about the world than many people, simply by doing a bit of exploration through experimentation.