Your desire to collapse all fact-finding into the concept of “science”

Well that’s a reach. I had to buy a new laptop charger and find facts about what voltage, etc. I needed… I certainly don’t consider that fact-finding exercise to be science, and I don’t think I said anything to suggest that.

But okay, I don’t have a textbook handy, but let’s see what we can find out about the Philosophy of Science:

Philosophy of Science - Wikipedia

Seems to pretty clearly indicate “lots of interesting and useful ideas, no consensus.” Peer review mentioned 0 times. The “Defining Science” section links to a page for the demarcation problem, so let’s go look at that.

Demarcation Problem - Wikipedia

“The debate continues after more than two millennia of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in various fields.”

And the article basically continues to that effect, IMO: Demarcation is difficult, unclear, and there is no consensus. Peer review mentioned 0 times.

Maybe it’s just Wikipedia that has this misconception. Let’s check some other sources.

The Philosophy of Science - UC Berkeley, Understanding Science 101

“Despite this diversity of opinion, philosophers of science can largely agree on one thing: there is no single, simple way to define science!”

Re: Demarcation problem:

“Modern philosophers of science largely agree that there is no single, simple criterion that can be used to demarcate the boundaries of science.”

Starting to sound familiar. Lots of opinions from Aristotle to Cartwright, none of whom highlight peer review or acceptance by the institutions as criteria. The page does talk about empiricism, parsimony, falsification, etc. though, consistent with other sources.

Glossary - “science” - UC Berkeley, Understanding Science 101

This one is simple:

Our knowledge of the natural world and the process through which that knowledge is built. The process of science relies on the testing of ideas with evidence gathered from the natural world. Science as a whole cannot be precisely defined but can be broadly described by a set of key characteristics. To learn more, visit A science checklist.

Let’s look at the checklist.

Science is embedded in the scientific community - UC Berkeley, Understanding Science 101

The page heading sounds pretty prescriptive, and that’s about the closest I can find that claims “if it’s not peer reviewed, it’s not science.” The body (IMO rightfully) describes the importance of community involvement in science, but doesn’t say anything like “it’s not science unless it involves the community.”

Take this excerpt about Gregor Mendel:

However, even in such cases [as Gregor Mendel’s], research must ultimately involve the scientific community if that work is to have any impact on the progress of science.

So yes, sharing his findings with the world was why it was able to have an impact, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to interpret that he wasn’t doing science while he was working in isolation, or that it only became science retroactively after it was a) shared, and b) accepted.

Let’s take a look at another textbook and see what it says:

1.6: Science and Non-Science - Introduction to History and Philosophy of Science

This chapter suggests that you can take two approaches to demarcation:

• What makes a theory scientific or non-scientific?
• What makes a “change in a scientific mosaic” scientific?

For theories - They’re clear that there are no clear universal demarcation criteria, but offer these suggestions:

• Suggestion 1: An empirical theory is scientific if it is based on experience.
• Suggestion 2: An empirical theory is considered scientific if it explains all the known facts of its domain.
• Suggestion 3: An empirical theory is scientific if it explains, by and large, the known facts of its domain.

For changes - This pertains specifically to whether a change to “a scientific mosaic” is scientific or not, which necessarily pertains to a scientific community. But I’d argue that this analysis seems pretty clearly downstream of a priori participation in a scientific community, not attempting to define science as such.

Didn’t read the whole textbook, so I might still be missing something, but the focus in the chapter is still definitely on the properties of the inquiry, not on the scientific institutions surrounding it.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Also looked at the entries for Scientific Method and Pseudo-science, which seem to be consistent with the other sources

TL;DR/Conclusion

So I’m still getting a really strong signal that:

• Science/non-science doesn’t have a clear demarcation line, and that problem is called the Demarcation Problem. It has a special name because it’s still a big deal.
• Ideas about what is science vs. non-science focus mostly on the properties of the inquiry: Is it a testable, falsifiable hypothesis that can be investigated with empirical observations?
• Scientific communities are still super important, and you can make statements about how scientific activity should interact with communities, but community involvement is not usually a factor in demarcation
• Peer review is useful and stuff, but has little interaction with the science/non-science demarcation question… I don’t think it came up in any of the sources I looked at

So… Do I still seem misguided? Are Wikipedia and UC Berkeley and this textbook called “Introduction to History and Philosophy of Science” and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy all also misguided? Or am I just interpreting them wrong?

Like I started this investigation feeling 100% ready to learn that my concept of “what Science is” was misguided… But idk, I did a bunch of reading based on your suggestion, and I gotta say I feel pretty guided right now.

If you wanna throw something else to read my way though, I’ll happily have a look at it.