What is science?

[Alex K]

Nice intro -
One more thing I'd like to emphasize because you only mention it somewhat implicitely here

There is an infinity of possible claims, and we only have a limited amount of time, so it makes sense only to focus on claims that have evidence.

is the important idea that something like Occam's Razor should be in place - possibly justified through the use of Bayesian Statistics which informally tells us that the probability for a hypothesis should be lowered by additional assumptions. This is necessary in order to prevent that needlessly complicated explanations and unfalsifiable baggage pile on on the theoretical side, which would lead to a plethora of empirically indistinguishable baroque theories. This completely stifles understanding and usefulness. Of course, this is precisely where science collides with religion in a particularly subtle way, so we should discuss it further.

But science is much more than skepticism, and indeed, too much skepticism hamstrings scientific understanding. Wegener's theory of continental drift is a good example: skeptics asked "How could entire continents move?" Faced with no answer, the hypothesis was sidelined. Their question was fair; they weren't being too skeptical; but sometimes, the same skepticism that drives the scientific process also hampers it.

It is true that skepticism towards specific claims can be exaggerated out of prejudice. In the end though, I wonder - if they had had low enough standards back then to immediately accept Wegeners idea (of course, not knowing like we do in hindsight that Wegener was right), how many other false ideas would have crept in and muddied the science completely? Maybe Wegener was an unfortunate victim of a necessary precaution. Of course, maybe it was simply sociology and politics which hindered the deserved acceptance - lard knows I've seen how the scientific communities are prone to all kinds of human weaknesses such as following trends or being jealous of new ideas or overly conservative at times.