So many excellent points and questions are being raised. I'm both 
impressed and pleased at the general level of discussion that's being 
achieved - this usually degenerates into a brawl before the real and 
useful and science/engineering relevant issues are given a decent 
airing. Keep it up guys! :-)

I'm too busy to spend the hours I'd like to addressing some of the 
points raised. (Midnight, stuff still due for tomorrow ...).

I'll try to leap in with quick comment re questions or comments 
addressed to me as I can manage.

>> I say there is a hard and fast dividing line [:-)].
>> Popper agrees (or, rather, of course, I agree with him).
>> Science is where you can model/predict/test and repeat ad infinitum
>> (or nauseum) and refine your model.

> That's what Popper calls science. That's also a pretty young 
> definition. As
> everything young, it still has the test of time in front of it.

That's true. BUT

1.    What Popper did was codify what was generally understood. And he 
drew attention to the fact that there are areas where systematic 
incremental methodology is possible, and areas where it is not. Again, 
it's not bad to deal with things in the latter case - it's just that 
it needs to be recognised which area things fall in.

2.    There's no questioning that Popper established that a systematic 
methodology is possible in some cases. What's in question (by some) is 
whether being able to deal with something by popper's methods or not 
is important or relevant. Interestingly, those disciplines where it is 
possible have embraced "The Scientific Method" with open arms and 
hearts and regard it as foundational. Those who think less highly of 
it are liable to be those who cannot use it and who therefore seek to 
downplay its importance or relevance.

> And Popper's definition of science is not "scientific" by his own 
> definition...
> so what does that say about it?

I'm not sure that's really a meaningful question (no rudeness 
intended). His method is not, I think, a model of a system. It's a 
description of a method intended to evaluate systems. If in fact his 
definition is a system then I suspect it can be falsified and altered 
by experimental verification (or not) and altered and ... .[[So far 
the original model passes all falsification attempts :-) :-) ]]

a > The one obvious question here is that of meaning. What does it 
mean whether
> something is "science" or not?
b >Popper himself says that whether something
> is science or not (in his sense) has no implication on anything else 
> (for
> example, on meaningfulness or significance); it's merely a matter of
> whether or not to apply that term.

b first.
I agree. That's a point I've been making repeatedly. I'm not saying 
that failing to fall within Popperian [?] Science makes something bad 
or wrong or less valuable etc - just not "Scientific" a la Popper.

BUT
> So the question remains: what difference does it make whether you 
> call
> something "science"?

Plus "a" above

To me the difference is vital when attempting to discover "truth" and 
"reality". Popper says that systems which are amenable to his method 
are never knowable with certainty BUT that one can (usually) produce 
increasinghly good models. He says that systems that are not amenable 
to his method are never knowable. <long pause while readers wait for 
the previous comment to be qualified in some way>. There is no 
qualification to this. Unknowable full stop. We can guess. We can 
gather information. We can estimate probabilities of success or 
correctness etc. It may well be that we do really really well. It MAY 
be that we achieve results that are closer to "reality" than many 
popperian models. BUT - WE CANNOT TELL. We may be completely and 
utterly wrong. We cannot tell. We can say that the model we have 
explains what we observe extremely well. And it may. But it may be 
utter confabulation.

For various reasons we have some people who do NP (non Popper) 
religion-science holding up their results as the absolute anseers to 
reality while simultaneously deriding people with other flavours of 
religion for their naievety and unscientific approach. we also have 
some of the latter being tempted to denigrate all science because they 
fail to understand that the derision of those who criticise them is 
without basis or reason and that they are all in the same boat. There 
are also problems between the popeerian Scientists and the "people 
with other flavours of religion" but these have a different basis. 
True Popperian Science happily recognises that it and True religion 
(in all forms) are orthogonal and vice versa and both coexist happily 
and get on with their respective jobs. Which form of science is which 
is important to me so that I can tell which is the proper way of 
relating it to "other flavours of religion". For NPS the approach is 
"we're all in the same boat". For PS it's "we can't see each other 
(but we can still be friends)".

Some one asked if I regarded Geology as "religion".
Prior to Plate Tectonics becoming the flavour of the century there was 
another theory that explained geological observations. It was elegant, 
convincing, did an excellent job of explaining what we see around us. 
And it was overthrown in a decade or so by plate tectonics and is now 
utterly discredited and discarded. Anyone proposing anything based on 
this theory nowadays would be treated with scorn. It took the plate 
tectonicites about 4 decades to beat in the doors. Throughout this 
time they were villified, academically shunned and worse. Suddenly 
they were heros. so, yes, Geology is religion too ;-) - or, to be 
fair, has many aspects that are still religion given our 
capabilities*. For the same reasons that other non Popperian sciences 
are. No problems with 'religion' in this role. But you have to know 
that's what you are dealing with. I don't expect plate tectonics to be 
replaced by a more convincing theory and decade soon - but if it was 
nobody should be surprised. .
* [Given time we may have undergrads building tenth scale tectonic 
plate systems in solar orbit for their finals exams ;-) ).

God gets mentioned here NOT as an attempt to draw this conversation 
into a religious one (which would be almost instantly fatal) but to 
make a point about a boundary between religion and PS (Popperian 
Science).
FWIW - while "Creation" can not properly be dealt with by PS, God can, 
if He/She/It wants to be. If God doesn't want to be it's not on, and 
this makes the process rather uncertain. (eg God not wanting to play 
that day and God not existing tend to have the same outcomes :-) ). If 
God chose to invariably and independently verifiably turn water to 
wine on request given certain conditions being met then this would be 
entirely testable and modellable by PS.(eg Always given x, y &z except 
on bank holidays.)

> I think the more important question is not what is science, but why 
> you
> want to make that distinction. Without knowing that, it seems kind 
> of
> futile.

I hope the above answers that. If not please advise and I'll try 
again, but shorter :-).




        Russell McMahon

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