This is a topic close to my heart. I shall add an erstwhile practitioner's perspective.

Science is first and foremost a BLOOD SPORT. The goal is as much about proving the other side wrong as it is about proving your side right.

Like all sports science has rules. The first rule, science's "prime directive", is observation trumps theory. No matter how elegant the theory, if observation contradicts it the theory must be abandoned or, at the least, modified.

That's the theory anyway. In practice scientists tolerate small discrepancies between theory and observation when the theory USUALLY works and nothing better is available. An example is Newton's law of gravity. In the 19th Century astronomers discovered that the orbit of mercury departed very slightly from the predictions of Newtonian gravity. However Newtonian gravity worked almost everywhere else and until Einstein published the general theory of relativity in 1917 there was nothing better. So astronomers continued using it.

A current example is the inability to produce a quantum theory of gravity. So scientists use general relativity for the gravitational force and quantum theory for the other three forces.

A theory is useful if it can explain many phenomena in terms of a few simple rules. The more phenomena a theory can explain the more powerful it is. Quantum field theory and Darwinian evolution are so central precisely because they explain so much and are usually in such excellent agreement with observation.

On a day to day level most scientists are not trying to develop grand new theories. They are about SOLVING PUZZLES. How can I explain metabolism in terms of the ALREADY ESTABLISHED LAWS OF PHYSICS? What happens at the level of electrons when mitochondria turn glucose into ATP? How is the energy stored in ATP used to power our muscles?

This program of using established scientific theory to extend our understanding of the natural world has been immensely successful. It has given us computers, vaccines, cancer therapies and aircraft. It has also given us nuclear weapons and other assorted "bads".

That's it within the 350 words.

>> Science is first and foremost a BLOOD SPORT. The goal is as much about proving the other side wrong as it is about proving your side right. <<

Well said. The most astounding aspect of the usual attacks on science (as in Intelligent Design and AGW denialism) is the claim that scientists are all part of a cosy cabal which passes anything and everything into the scientific domain without the slightest scrutiny.

Now, before the fundamentalists get started, they should watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlaCq3dKvvI&feature=related

Thanks to the previous posters for pointing out what the anti-science brigade likes to present as a fact: Science is inherently combatitive and humble: It always assumes improvement is possible and that new information may change things. The social commenters who like to point out the "flaws" of science are usually guilty of much bigger sins, and the daddy sin: ignorance of the real practice. (Vastly ignorent commentary is akin to lying)
Whilst it is OK and valuable to question science, I believe it is more relevant at the moment to compare it to the "alternatives":
In less then 100 years science dragged humans from primitives to where we are now (rich primitives!).
All the medical, philosophical and physical gains have come from the method: "Reality is king".
The alternatives (faith, spirit, tradition) say otherwise: Believe the tradition, believe the priest, believe the book. *Trust* me. What they have in common is that they all say "reality is *not* the ultimate...X is". "X" is usually badly defined, if at all!
Science is the civilised person's philosophy: humble and willing to react to reality. Science is repeatable.
Religion is the Bogan philosophy: Keep it simple and easy to digest. Religion is always "special". Never repeatable.
I don't believe there is so much of a problem with science as the author states. The problem is that there is a lack of practiced scientists who can explain why the theory works, and the fact that not everything can be explained to a lay-man

Sorry, what are "the most important questions in science" again? In my innocence I always thought they were to do with providing food, clothing and shelter. As long as scientists can go on doing that successfully I don't see that it matters whether or not they know or care about the philosophical profundities which underpin (or fail to underpin) their activities -- even if we could agree what these are -- any more than a successful financier has to know how coins are made.

Ummm, not really seeing where science is "failing".

Science fails in practice to look like a purely logical or abstract cerebral activity, but that is a societal perception of science/scientists, often held by the scientists ourselves. It's not really a good picture of our real activity. (Actually, I think I could say that the most productive hour of my whole life was spent sitting still in a chair, apparantly doing nothing)

I don't think there is a "flaw" in the basis of depending on imperfect theory as in the Hume you mention.

As you say, observation os king, either one's initial (perhaps "natural") observations or those made during more explicit experiment. If time permits, one need only do enough random experiments to find the useful observation. "Hypothesis" and "Theory" and "parsimony" simply give us good clues to save time in the next experiment. Creativity and imagination are key ingredients in the process, to exceed the current theory, to imagine the yet more constrained what-may-be that is congruent with all before but exptrapolates a little further (or a lot) without trying all possibilities.

I think the only other critical aspect of this rather elaborate temporal-difference learning system is memory (journals perhaps) and fairly simple logical steps, which can be formalised several ways.

The foundations of science are not infirm. What we know, the behaviour of certain systems, the properties of stuff, we really know to the resolution so far specified. A failure to work out the next bit in a given timeframe is no failure, the question (or the unknown whose property the question is about)may be really tricky. The detail of gravity theory may change a few more times, but I bet that certain observations will never be discarded, such as the universality of gravitation and mass, the zeroth law of thermodynamics, the statistical difficulty of rolling snake eyes n times in a row.

The only crisis in science is that not enough is going on, by a factor of at least ten.

These two related references provide a unique perspective on the method of science as open ended free enquiry and scientism as a dogmatically enforced power and control seeking ideology.

http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon/truth-science.aspx

http://www.aboutadidam.org/lesser_alternatives/scientific_materialism/reductionism.html

Ho Hum

Quote from your second link:

"If science were truly a method for unrestricted inquiry…"

But science is not a method for "unrestricted inquiry". Science is an enterprise whose goal is to expand our understanding of the MATERIAL world.

Is there something beyond the material world? My guess is probably not. But if there is it is outside the purview of science.

Let's take a central question. Does there exist a being or entity that we could call the creator of the universe?

I doubt it but there is no way I can disprove the existence of a creator. There is probably no scientific way of deciding the question.

On the other hand science can sometimes deal with SPECIFIC CLAIMS about a creator. For example, Muslims believe that the koran was transmitted verbatim to Muhammad via a messenger called Jibril (Gabriel) and that it was protected against "corruption". The text of the koran we have today, so Muslims believe, is identical with the words Muhammad received from Jibril between 610 and 632.

But the scientific evidence is against this. See:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199901/koran

AND

http://www.michaelsheiser.com/ScribalPractices/lost%20Quran%20MSS.pdf

The EVIDENCE says that the text of the koran evolved over a period of about two centuries. Thus the SPECIFIC CLAIM that the koran remained unchanged since 632 is falsified.

Similarly, evidence has probably falsified the claim that the Shroud of Turin is Jesus's burial cloth.

But science cannot disprove the claim that Muhammad, assuming he existed, communicated with a messenger from the creator or that a man called Jesus rose from the dead. We may be sceptical. We may point out how unlikely this is. But there is no way of disproving it because neither event left any MATERIAL evidence on which science can work.

If you want to believe in improbable events for which there is no evidence you are free to do so. But the only interest a scientist would have is to speculate why some people feel compelled to take improbable tales on faith.

Economic growthist and overpopulationist extermination of the human race is the only scientific theory that is salient today.

All other theories from chemistry to biology to Physics will have to wait fior new species of life to explore and enjoy.

The human species is hard wired for over 90% sexual motivation. This was nature's way to ensure reproductive survival in unpredictable geo-meteorological times.

Now, the only serious, unpredictable threat to our survival is our own rampant sexuality itself. Everything from deceit to murder to WAR is engaged in the passion of LOVE. Just ask Governors Sanford and Spitzer!

How contradictory, unless you look through the veil and see that the human race with all its seeming wonderous science will exterminate itself in wars and aftermaths of disease within 100 years.

The Maths, the aftermaths & the beforemaths of Population Kinetics" (http://depts.washington.edu/rfpk/rd/index.html) all say this is true, yet people still cling to the self serving wall-street propaganda that the richer we get the fewer children we have. The current and projected growths of the total world population just don't support that :

Will it take the last man standing and his very last breath to aver that the theory of 'economic-growthist extermination of the human species' is in fact true?

The probability IS approaching unity each and every day with each and every institutional profit-taking oscillation of the NYSE index.