It’s
going to be tautology when I say that science is what scientist
do. Unfortunately, nowadays that’s probably as good definition
as it gets. And then, who is a scientist? A huge proliferation of
the label happened in the second half of the twentieth century -
scientist is someone by occupation, not necessarily by his/her
advances in human knowledge. Today, any research is labeled as
science and scientific method (approach) has often been degraded
to the blind usage of computer software. Science first became
profession then business, that’s what happened.
There
is hardly anything more exciting than science. Science shows us,
and explains (at least to some degree), the wonders of microscopic
world as well as the entire universe. More evidently, science is
the base of the technologies by which humans dominate most other
species on Earth. And yet, and regrettably, so much uncalled for
and ludicrous work is sold under the name of science.
Now,
wait a minute. Maybe all that ‘scientific garbage’ is the
price we have to pay for science to advance at present pace. I
recall how only after a year, at the beginning of my scientific
career, I felt disappointed with the insignificance of what I was
doing. My adviser promptly reacted: