Thread by @GidMK

This is just a confusion in terms:

"Science" = process by which humans examine the universe

"Facts" = truths about the universe that cannot be altered

Science is by definition constructed. Facts are not

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1368259842222268421

My first degree was a double major in psychology and the philosophy of science, and I love this stuff. The idea that science is some fixed system breaks down remarkably easy

One brilliant exercise - take a list of fields and classify them into science, pseudoscience, and not science

This is usually fairly easy!

Now, try and describe ~why~ things fall into the categories they do

MUCH harder

Many scientific disciplines were created by charlatans and used for purposes that we would now describe as pseudoscientific. In the 1800s, some pseudoscientific areas were more on the ball than "traditional" medicine

And large parts of what we now mark as the imprimatur of "science" - white coats, labs, PhDs - are more historical than they are an essential part of the process

Then we have the areas that use what we'd usually consider as the "scientific method" - sociology, anthropology - but lack the certainty that physics gives us. They don't fit the classical mold of "science", but they do still do things scientifically

Anyway, the second you actually start to try and define the rules that govern why some things are considered science and others are not, you realize that a lot of it is pretty arbitrary

When Dawkins says that "science" is not socially constructed, what he means is that there are objectively true facts and that these are immutable, but the reality is that our system for discovering those facts cannot ever be without some construction

Yes, he partially clarified this, but the important point is not about whether there is or isn't an objective reality, but whether our system for examining that reality is objective