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<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7474910" data-attributes="member: 6683613">I'm sort of with you on this one. As previously discussed, I'm not so quick to rule out the possibility that baseball scoring might be science of a sort, but there are reasons to say it's not beyond the question of whether it's using the scientific method or &quot;merely&quot; data-gathering. (For instance, baseball scorekeeping is more of a subjective endeavor than most fans like to think it is: errors are only the most common of the judgment calls a scorer has to make.) You're absolutely right that&nbsp; [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s profundity criterion is arbitrary, and it seems unfair to say that middle schoolers are not doing science on that ground.The thing is, language is arbitrary. Words mean what we use them to mean, and some usages are subjective or inconsistent or otherwise wacky. There are terms we use which undoubtedly have a profundity criterion in their application - &quot;literature&quot;, for example. So simply to point out a profundity criterion is not sufficient to establish that a definition is &quot;wrong&quot;. And in fact, as far as my own linguistic intuition goes, it seems right to say that middle schoolers are doing science but less right to say that they are scientists. And the same goes for baseball scorekeepers, even in a hypothetical world where scoring is an objective and otherwise scientific process. So, odd as it may seem, I think a profundity criterion may be in the latter word but not the former.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 7474910, member: 6683613"] I'm sort of with you on this one. As previously discussed, I'm not so quick to rule out the possibility that baseball scoring might [I]be[/I] science of a sort, but there are reasons to say it's not beyond the question of whether it's using the scientific method or "merely" data-gathering. (For instance, baseball scorekeeping is more of a subjective endeavor than most fans like to think it is: [I]errors[/I] are only the most common of the judgment calls a scorer has to make.) You're absolutely right that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s profundity criterion is arbitrary, and it seems unfair to say that middle schoolers are not doing science on that ground. The thing is, language [I]is[/I] arbitrary. Words mean what we use them to mean, and some usages are subjective or inconsistent or otherwise wacky. There are terms we use which undoubtedly have a profundity criterion in their application - "literature", for example. So simply to point out a profundity criterion is not sufficient to establish that a definition is "wrong". And in fact, as far as my own linguistic intuition goes, it seems right to say that middle schoolers are doing [I]science[/I] but less right to say that they are [I]scientists[/I]. And the same goes for baseball scorekeepers, even in a hypothetical world where scoring is an objective and otherwise scientific process. So, odd as it may seem, I think a profundity criterion may be in the latter word but not the former. [/QUOTE]

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