This is just nit-picking. We use the term "science" to mean various different things. One of those things is an "institution" or an "enterprise". It is a commonplace, very useful convention to personify human institutions. Nobody bats an eye when someone says "GM has decided to emphasize a more fuel efficient vehicles this year" or "Wall Street's mood is expansive." Of course, GM cannot decide anything and Wall Street (neither the institution consisting of a large number of independent individuals and smaller institution nor the physical location where a smaller and smaller number of those individuals and institutions are located) is incapable of having a "mood". But it is useful to invoke our apparently in-born capacity to understand human beings in terms of goals, motives, alliances and, yes decisions, moods and even beliefs in understanding institutions. Science the institution acts like it believes things, even things that not every individual member of that institution (not all of whom are scientists, by the way) believes in.  |