Holden Thorp, the editor-in-chief of the prestigious journal Science, described on Substack a discussion that occurred during the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In the closing plenary session, he posed to a “panel of scientific leaders” the question, “Who is a scientist?” The answers “ranged from very narrow (just people who are doing or planning research) all the way to very broad (every living human).”
Then Thorp offered his opinion:
“My view is that everyone who contributes to the scientific enterprise is a scientist. It’s not just lab work that makes up science. It’s science policy, science communication, scientific illustration, and science education, and many other things. In fact, you could make the case that our current struggles aren’t about whether we’re succeeding in the laboratory but rather whether all of the other parts of science are succeeding. Perhaps
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