What is science?

A few months ago seven University of Auckland professors wrote an open letter which was published in the Listener magazine.  (Reposted here.)

I know two of those professors.  Robert Nola was one of my teachers in the philosophy department.  Amongst other things, I learnt philosophy of science from him, and I'm pretty sure that when I tutored undergraduate courses on theories of human nature he was lecturing them.

I'm also pretty sure Michael Corballis was one of my lecturers when I did my undergraduate psychology major.

But it seems that some people are strongly disagreeing with the letter.  And sadly it seems to have exploded into academic freedom issues that are now being noted overseas.

Sigh.  As far as I can see, (mostly) everyone means well in the disagreement, but those who are disagreeing with the letter are not understanding the conceptual distinctions.  Maybe I have missed the more reasoned responses (happy to be corrected on this), but as far as I can see, responses to the letter have strawpersoned the letter's reasoning.

Having been involved in some of Robert's philosophy of science courses, to me it is ironic that some people are questioning the letter's understanding of what science is.  More than most people, Robert knows theories of the nature of science, and I have yet to see any responses to the letter that even begin to approach the level of discussion I experienced 20 years ago.

Kyle Gibson tries to clarify things here.