Most people regard “science” as being objective and trustworthy, and perhaps a little mysterious. Some people even like to back their own work or products with science, as this makes them appear more authoritative. For instance, advertisers like to brag about their products in a scientific tone, and some churches even claim that science has proven that the Bible is true.

It’s not hard to see that science is highly esteemed and has become synonymous with professionalism and authority. So what is so special about science? Where does its authority come from? What is the “scientific method” that everyone celebrates? What are the requirements for a discipline to be called science? And how does one distinguish between science and pseudo-science? The book What is This Thing Called Science, as you will learn in this Bookey, was written to elucidate and answer questions of this kind.

The author Alan Chalmers tells us that our understanding of science continues to evolve throughout history, and there is no universal standard that can be applied to all disciplines. As we study the different stages of the development of science, we will realize that the so-called science is just like a primary school student that improves their ability to understand the world by constantly learning from their past mistakes. After all, modern science as we know it today has only developed over the last three to four hundred years. 

What can we ordinary people get out from this book? Well, two things at least. First, it teaches us how to learn across disciplines. As you might know, three famous investors, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Ray Dalio, all have repeatedly emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary learning. If you do study across disciplines, you would know that many disciplines are closely related to the philosophy of science. After reading this book, What is This Thing Called Science, you will have a systematic understanding of science itself, and it will be much easier for you to study other disciplines. Second, this book is also quite useful to our work and daily life. For example, you can identify pseudoscience through the lens of falsificationism, make good investment decisions by using Bayesian approaches, and quickly grasp the core knowledge of a discipline using a structuralist perspective, and the list goes on.