What Is Science?

The other day I was in a discussion about what "science" is. I've written about this before but this debate got me thinking about it again and I thought I'd set out what I think in more detail. I wasn't sure how best to structure this so I'm going to start with my main claim, followed by a Q and A bit. The Q's are not intended to be straw-men or caricatures, they're questions I've asked myself in the course of thinking about this. My Claim: "Science" is just the process of looking at the world and thinking about the evidence in an effort to understand it. It's not a special form of knowledge, scientists don't use a special 'scientific method' - scientists just look and think about things. They may use special equipment and techniques, but in essence it's no different to what we all do every day. As such it makes no sense to talk about the 'limits of science' or 'what science can't tell us', unless by that we mean the limits of human knowledge itself, because science just is knowledge. Q: "But if science were just observation, everyone would be a scientist and it becomes meaningless." - No: for the same reason that not everyone is a poet, even though anyone can write a poem. Science is observation informed by previous scientific findings i.e. it is expert observation. Anyone can, say, look at the stars but this doesn't make them an astronomer. Astronomy is in essence just looking at the stars and thinking about them - in a broad sense - but to contribute to astronomy, you first need to know the relevant background, which few except astronomers do. Likewise, anyone can write a poem, but few of us can make a living out of it. Q: