I think the common image of a ‘scientist’ is a guy in a lab coat surrounded by beakers and tubing or complicated electronic devices, or else a blackboard with mile-long equations – like a chemist or a physicist. I’ve heard several medical doctors refer to themselves as ‘scientists’. Your average GP doesn’t fit the mental image, but of course they are scientists. No argument from me, there.
But what about a veterinarian? If a doctor-for-humans is a scientist, isn’t a doctor-for-animals one too? Engineers seem to refer to themselves as ‘engineers’; but you also hear of ‘the science of engineering’. Engineering is the practical application of physics, isn’t it? After all, an engineer whose specialty is rocket propulsion or astrodynamics is a ‘rocket scientist’. What about a geologist? Or a mathematician?
I think to be a scientist, you’ve got to be in the business of generating and sharing new (previously unknown) information using scientific methods.
So, by that standard, most doctors and veterinarians are not scientists - they work in a scientific field, and most of their training is scientific, but they’re not fundementally in the business of generating new information. Some are, and you can generally tell from their emphasis on research in addition to or instead of clinical practice.
I would think it works similarly for many engineers.
Geologists would definitely be scientists, and mathematicians too.
Clearly any meaningful answer to this question must have a large degree of subjectivity to it. But, as an engineer, I’ve often pondered on the differences between engineering and science. Here is my personal opinionated take (YMMV):
Science is the practice of *discovering *the fundamental rules of how the universe works. Focus is on the mechanisms connecting cause to effect, for the sake of the knowledge itself. No practical application is needed. Of course, funding is always easier to secure if there is at least some conceivable practical application down the road, but the scientist himself is searching just for knowledge.
Engineering is the practice of *applying *those fundamental rules of how the universe works to solutions to practical problems. In other words, the focus is on creating something (product, methodology, software, etc.) that can be used directly to improve the quality of human life.
A medical doctor, by my definition, is closer to an engineer than a scientist. Of course, all fields of knowledge rely on both forms of activity: the finding of the principles, and the using of the principles. Also, there are some people who handle both ends of the equation, which is where the ambiguity comes in.
Medical doctors aren’t primarily researchers, but many of them do perform studies and publish the results, so those individuals definitely count as scientists. But it’s not right to say that every doctor is a scientist, because some just practice.
Engineers are a little bit more difficult, because the knowledge they produce tends to be more imperative than declarative, and I always think of scientists as people who are discovering new declarative knowledge. But engineers definitely operate scientifically, and it’s arguable that discovering new imperative knowledge falls under the purview of science.
Not mathematicians. They produce new knowledge, but deductively, not scientifically.
While there are geologists who do study specimens and systems to gain new knowledge, ISTM most are in the business of using knowledge already extant; e.g., one who works for an oil company looking for likely places to drill or for mining companies looking for likely places to dig.
I agree, if going by wevets’ definition, a lot of geologists are right out.
Personally, I think the line between ‘engineer’ and ‘scientist’ is more hazy than that. Engineers doing research, for example, are more like scientists. My opinion is that it depends upon what work you’re doing.
Well that’s it. You can’t determine whether someone is a scientist or not by what field they are in. It’s whether they are doing original research, vs. whether they are just applying knowledge already known. (However, there are plenty of cases where commercial geologists have published scientific papers on the work they have done.)
As an ornithologist who does field research, I am a scientist. There are other people who work on birds, such as technicians do wildlife surveys, who would not really qualify as scientists.
I like that definition, but it raises the question: Does discovering what’s wrong with a particular patient (like Dr. House does, for example) count as “new (previously unknown) information”? I’m not sure how I’d answer that myself. I’ve sometimes thought that the show House could be considered as a sort of “science fiction,” and that what he does is similar to what a scientist does (with allowances for dramatic license).
Not if he’s diagnosing a patient as having a disease that is already known – the only “new” info there is that “Patient X has this disease.” It’s not science unless he identifies a new disease by isolating symptoms, causation, etc.
A Scientist is primarily focused on discovering new knowledge about how the the Universe works.
An Engineer is primarily focused on applying knowledge to practical applications.
For example the Physicists in the Manhattan Project discovered the underlying principles of atomic fission, and calculated the critical mass of U235 and PU239 required. The Engineers and Chemists were left to actually create the bomb itself. Of course, as in any real-world project, there were many people who had interdisciplinary skills, and worked in both fields.
FWIW, I have a degree in Physics, but have always worked as an Engineer.
A research scientist, does, I agree. But I also think that the people who work in QC laboratories in technical manufacturing industries are scientists. And the people who work in hospital laboratories are, too. Ditto for the people who work in police forensic laboratories.
Medicine is applied biology. Said with a sneer. We pure scientists hold it in contempt. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a slight smudge on my ivory tower.
As a scientist who has worked with a number of physicians who like to take a research vacation, I can say that physicians are NOT scientists. It’s a completely different mindset. Not better or worse mind you, as I would absolutely suck as a physician, but it’s quite far apart.
There are some physician/scientists, but they have been trained as scientists in addition to medicine.
By your definition theoretical physicists aren’t scientists. I’m sure that Stephen Hawking (Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge) would disagree. To categorically say that mathematicians aren’t scientists is as bogus as to say physicians aren’t scientists. Some people here are using much too narrow a definition of scientist. Now I will grant that a lot of mathematicians and physicians are poor examples of working scientists, but if the world is divided into scientific and non-scientific professions (since the OP asked for a “dividing line”) I would put them in the scientific part.
This is probably the best way to go about it. In my medical school, there’s two schools of thought- people who are focusing on the clinical aspect of medicine and enjoy the practical USE of medicine, but there are also plenty of people who want to be researchers and PhDs and medical research doctors- to come up with new medicines, treatments, and gaining a better understanding of how to treat diseases. Both of us are in the same classes and it’s interesting- some of us LOVE the clinical aspects and hate just staring at books and charts all day, while others dread having to go out and meet the patients, much preferring to read up on the latest publications and articles in JAMA and the like.
There are also those enrolled in the joint MD/PhD program and those are the ones officially classified for sure by all of us in the class as “scientists” but they’ll be doctors too, they’re just doing graduate research WHILE in medical school, and will graduate with both degrees/honors. Just as there are others who are doing a MD/Masters of Public Health program- those people are more interested in the epidemiology and social aspects of medicine, they will graduate as Doctors, but they’ll also be whatever it is that Public Health Professionals and Advocates are.
So not all doctors may be scientists, but there certainly are a core group of doctors that will easily be classified as Scientists.
House is a diagnostician and practices clinical medicine to help and treat current patients. Dr. FOREMAN though was a scientist when he was conducting an experimental study on Huntington’s patients for research(assuming he did more than just give the drugs to the patients in the study, and actually had a hypothesis, or interest in the actual publication of the research and not just the lab monkey) earlier in the season.
That’s where I’d draw the line.
I would also say there’s a difference between Scientist and Scientific. There are PLENTY of scientific professions that wouldn’t include being a scientist in them.