Definition of "science"

Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.

2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

For by his mightie Science he had seene / The secret vertue of that weapon keene […]

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

If we conceive God's sight or science, before the creation, to be extended to all and every part of the world, seeing everything as it is, […] his science or sight from all eternity lays no necessity on anything to come to pass.

1654, H[enry] Hammond, Of Fundamentals in a Notion Referring to Practise, London: […] J[ames] Flesher for Richard Royston, […]

Shakespeare's deep and accurate science in mental philosophy

1819, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on Hamlet

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding vain and profane babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], 1 Timothy 6:20-21

‘I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,’ he said.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 201

"That this use should be destructive is no doubt very deplorable, but Science knows no distinctions of the sort, but follows knowledge wherever it may lead."

1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disintegration Machine‎

What is it that has produced this new prodigious speed of man? Science is the cause. Her feeble groping fingers lifted here and there, often trampled underfoot, often frozen in isolation, have now become a vast organized, united, class-conscious army marching forward upon all the fronts toward objectives none may measure or define.

1931 November 15, Winston Churchill, “Fifty Years Hence”, in Maclean's‎, archived from the original on 18 July 2020

I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality […] Whenever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism.

1951 January 1, Albert Einstein, letter to Maurice Solovine, as published in Letters to Solovine (1993)

In an era when political leaders promise deliverance from decline through America’s purported preeminence in scientific research, the news that science is in deep trouble in the United States has been as unwelcome as a diagnosis of leukemia following the loss of health insurance.

2012 January, Philip E. Mirowski, “Harms to Health from the Pursuit of Profits”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, page 87

While much good science has come from the Hubble telescope (including the most reliable measure to date for the expansion rate of the universe), you would never know from media accounts that the foundation of our cosmic knowledge continues to flow primarily from the analysis of spectra and not from looking at pretty pictures.

2001 September, Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Over the rainbow”, in Natural History, volume 110, number 7, page 30

Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop.

2008, HMV Hammersmith Apollo, in Dara Ó Briain Talks Funny – Live in London, spoken by stand-up comedian (Dara Ó Briain), United Kingdom, published 2008

With wildfires raging across the West, climate change took center stage in the race for the White House on Monday as former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called President Trump a “climate arsonist” while the president said that “I don’t think science knows” what is actually happening.

2020 September 14, “As Trump Again Rejects Science, Biden Calls Him a ‘Climate Arsonist’”, in New York Times‎

There are plenty of earnestly respectful vaccine selfies, where the inoculated person bares a shoulder and thanks science for their shot.

2021 April 27, Amanda Hess, “Inject the Vaccine Fan Fiction Directly Into My Veins”, in The New York Times‎

“I expected it from politicians. I didn’t expect it from science.”

2021 June 3, Katherine Eban, quoting Robert Redfield, “The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins”, in Vanity Fair‎

From a conviction, that the science is universally understood, the strong are taught humility, and the weak confidence. Many have laughed at the idea, that Boxing is of national service, but they have laughed at the expence[sic] of truth.

1816, The art and practice of English boxing, page v

[…] for not a blow or guard in boxing will repay you more than the cross-counter, which may well be called the sheet-anchor of the science.

1888, William Edwards, Art of Boxing and Science of Self-Defense

I mock'd at all religious Fear, Deep-scienced in the mazy Lore Of mad Philosophy

1742, Philip Francis, Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Seculare of Horace in Latin and English