Talk:Science

Women in science?????

I strongly believe the paragraph is of a subjective and naive in nature, and I wish for it to be removed. I question the relevance of the paragraph, and the wording which has been chosen. In a wiki whose purpose is to address the principles of science, perceived generalisations such as this are not relevant.

I would prefer the paragraph be listed in media appropriate, such as a magazine.

Women in science Main article: Women in science Estudiante INTEC.jpg

Science is, in general, a male-dominated field. Evidence suggests that this is due to stereotypes (e.g. science as "manly") as well as self-fulfilling prophecies.[57][58] Experiments have shown that parents challenge and explain more to boys than girls, asking them to reflect more deeply and logically.[59] Physicist Evelyn Fox Keller argues that science may suffer for its manly stereotypes when ego and competitiveness obstruct progress, since these tendencies prevent collaboration and sharing of information.[60] As will be seen in the main article, many women have risen above past prejudices to do great things in science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.175.247.66 (talk) 16:33, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Um...given that it's very well sourced, to scientific studies, in fact, I don't see why you're claiming that it's subjective or naive. REmember, it's just designed as a one paragraph summary of a much larger article. What specifically do you think is subjective or naive? Qwyrxian (talk) 16:37, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Is history a science?

I think history is a science, and it is included under the drop down menu on the right side of the page of the sciences. I am sure some people do not think history is a science. How can history be defended as a science? Before history can be defended as a science, it must be backed up by a good argument demonstrating that it as a science in the first place. Any ideas? Psychedelic Yogi (talk) 04:04, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Nature vs Universe

The article starts with:

Science (from Latin: scientia meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

Isn't "Nature" broader than "Universe"? I don't want to edit and cause problems, better discuss first. Thanks. Yosef1987 (talk) 10:15, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

It is a question that has been discussed before, and it is certainly not a crazy question. Have a look in the archives for this talk page. You can search by key words up above.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad it wasn't a crazy question! Phew! But I'm more concerned about the linking, the Universe article is mostly about physical cosmology, and the Nature article would exclude some sciences as well. I've looked at some of the discussions (thanks), but they don't tackle my concern. For which - after checking the discussions - leaves me with an idea: why not rephrase it with an emphasis on the knowledge article? None of the references seem to highlight the universe in particular for the definition. Yosef1987 (talk) 13:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit: Disregard. Yosef1987 (talk) 10:00, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Scientific Propositions can never be Proven

'Whether mathematics itself is properly classified as science has been a matter of some debate.' Do enough scientists and mathematicians hold such a bizzare view that this section warrants being included? The differences between math & science are too numerous to list here; but it should be sufficient to note that a term as fundamental as 'truth' has a completely different meaning in each. Perhaps this section should be removed. Geologist (talk) 19:19, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it is good to have a section on Math and Science as the two tend to be discussed together as a single topic. A section that discusses the similarities and differences between the two would be informative to readers. danielkueh (talk) 15:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The article does not need to take a strong position either way, but not to mention the link would make the article less informative.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:10, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Let's cook up......

Ok -first step, GAN. Issues to look at....Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• Is this article comprehensive? More specifically, has it got the right hierarchy? Has important stuff been missed for more esoteric stuff? Might be good to set a prose cap and go from there. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• Something that might be interesting to consider is if the article is rather heavily slanted to a Western point of view. I see way more mentions of European and American scientists and ideas, and pretty much nothing from the Middle and Far East, South America, Africa, etc (although the last two have never really been heavy into scientific advancement, AFAIK). Dana boomer (talk) 00:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

• ...who is Joseph Ben-David anyway? Seems an odd person and odd source to quote.....?

• According to this JSTOR article, he was fairly prominent in the field of "sociology of science". I'm not totally sure I agree with him, considering, for example, Science in medieval Islam, but he is a known figure in the scientific community. Dana boomer (talk) 00:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

• Mayhap he needs an article on hisself? Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

• Do we want to decide on a citation format at the beginning or go along with everyone adding cites how they want and then standardize them at the end? There's currently a mix of sfn/harvnb linking to cite book templates in the References section, cite xyz and no templates. Do we want to use sfn formatting on all books, or just ones that are used multiple times? I personally think that standardizing first and then working from there is best - saves a lot of work at the end when you have 300 refs to go through and fix up - but maybe that's just me. I'll volunteer to keep an eye on the formatting and try to make sure everything's pretty once we decide what we want to do, if that works for everyone. Dana boomer (talk) 00:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, they are somewhat heterogeneous - was looking at them but then pondered that some might be unneeded. Probably best to go through comprehensiveness first and see what gets promoted or relegated..? Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:28, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe do an initial weeding once we get a few more comments here, and then do a fix up? Like I said, I just think it will be easier to standardize as we go, rather than waiting for there to be hundreds of refs in a dozen formats before we try to decide on and implement a style. Dana boomer (talk) 00:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I've been copyediting when I see things, which I shouldn't do until we get content right but there you go ;) Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Initial take: (1) The history section is the strongest although far from perfect; (2) Every other section is pretty weak; (3) Particularly glaring are the absence of a discussion of the relationship between science and religion, and the lack of a treatment of philosophical approaches to the problem of inductive reasoning. I'm sure there are other things that will be equally glaring as soon as they occur to us. I don't think starting with a prose cap will be useful, but I do think it will benefit us to think early about the article structure: in my experience settling early on a good article structure is the key to getting an article to work. Looie496 (talk) 00:38, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Other missing topics: (*) The relationship between science and technology; (*) The concept of a scientific revolution. Looie496 (talk) 00:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Sound good to me all Looie. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Pursuing the theme, I wonder if it would make sense to create Talk:Science/Outline, and use it to cooperatively work out an article structure? (Not to be set in stone, of course.) Looie496 (talk) 03:39, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, dunno. I reckon here is ok - as there will be ongoing discussion here. Could just try it as a level three header - was what I was thinking of WRT "comprehensiveness". Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

TCO take:

1. I agree with y'all's impressions of the article. The major thing is to decide what should be in there and get the content. Right now, it seems very uneven and ad hoc. Some topics not covered at all (commercial aspects, development of big science). Some places where they blather on about a quote wrt pure research. I'd like a little more on the major fields themselves as subheaders, etc. I bet any one of us would come up with something sort of different, but in any case it would be an improvement over what is in there now. And if we toss it around, hopefully can cover each other's blind spots and be better than any one singly. Definitely writing out an outline of topics (perhaps with approximate number of paras) would be a good starting point.

2. If Dana is just itching to get going on footnotes, would say, why don't you go ahead and pick a format (especially if you are going to do most of the work). I trust you to put what is best for us out there. Only caution I would have is that if you are quivering to redo the citations in this current article, just realize 50%+ of the content may be changing. It's just not in the state where we have the right content and just need polishing.

71.246.147.40 (talk) 05:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)