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A "source for this definition"? It follows logically from the fact that science is about replication and specificity. You're asking for an authority to tell you something when it would have made more sense to ask "why do you say that" or "why would that be true".

And I do know people who would use this definition: every single person I know who is a scientist.

I think it's a rather pithy distillation of the process of gaining scientific consensus. The source would be: "learn what the process of science is about, how it works and about the philosophy of science and this quote becomes a rather obvious truism"

A single study is to science what a single TDD test case is to software engineering. Despite what crappy news outlets tell you.

All that said, lutusp is being pretty negative about this study for no obvious reason. Someone needs to do the exploratory work at the beginning and this is interesting work, whether you call it science or the start of science. The rest seems like complaining about the press being the press.

From previous experience discussing on HN, I would say 'lutusp has a very specific view of the philosophy of science, and doesn't consider it open to debate.

> I would say 'lutusp has a very specific view of the philosophy of science, and doesn't consider it open to debate.

And your evidence is that we're having this debate?

> Perhaps you really believe this definition of science. I've never encountered it before, nor do I know anyone that would use this definition.

Do you mean the idea that science must craft and then test theories? That's not at all controversial, and every legitimate science is defined by its theories. Without the Standard Model, physics isn't science. Without the theories of evolution, genetics and cell biology, biology is not science. Without theories about geological processes and plate tectonics, geology is not science.

How could we determine whether a field is or is not a science unless the determination was based on its tested, defining theories? We know astrology is not a science because its theories fail when tested. Are you saying that astrology would become a science by not having testable theories?

> When people operating on a different definition of science encounter your definition ...

Not only is this not my definition, it has been expressed in a number of legal decisions that, for example, keep Creationism out of public school classrooms. The reason? Creationism's theories fail when tested.

>> In fact, science is ten studies making one claim.

> If it is a fact, can you provide a source for this definition?

My source is the practice of science. Einstein's relativity theory, as pretty as it was on paper, was not accepted until the corpus of evidence for it was overwhelming, in dozens of confirmations (this required experimental work until the mid-1960s). Plate tectonics was not accepted until the field evidence became overwhelming. Examples abound. All on need do is read some science history to discover that one publication means nothing.

> These are the things that one will naturally wonder about in the context of contempt, even if the contempt is accidental.

Science doesn't care about contempt, it cares about evidence. Contempt is completely irrelevant to the process, and every scientist knows this.