I have been thinking a lot about the question, how do the various authors we have been reading, and/or how do their research subjects define science? What makes something scientific? What does it mean if something is scientific?
One way to approach this question might be to explore how people define what science is not. I found an interesting example on the guardian news website... a column titled "nobel prize for quack pottery," in which the columnist ("GrrlScientist") identifies former Nobel Prize winners who have become "anti-scientific".
In one post she (I assume, she) writes: "To qualify for this award, these Nobel Laureates must exemplify the antithesis of genius, they must be the intellectual epitome of de-evolution, they must be the precise opposite of "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". In short, they must have descended into quack pottery." In another post: "this award is limited to still-living scientists who have won the Nobel Prize and who openly embrace some form of anti-scientific or pseudoscientific quackery."
As you might imagine it's quite humorous, though a little school-yard bully at times in the criticisms of so called non-scientific quackery.
View the following links for a laugh, a discouraged sigh, or a combination of the two, depending on your outlook:
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