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This may be off-topic here; if so, I'd appreciate suggestions for where else to post it.

I recently got into a disagreement with someone regarding Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon who has recently become a prominent figure in American politics, and is said to be considering a run for the Presidency. The other person in this disagreement referred to Carson as a "scientist". I thought that label seemed wrong. Without question he is an accomplished neurosurgeon, perhaps one of the greatest living, and he definitely has many, many publications. But somehow the "scientist" label felt off-key to me, and those publications don't seem to me to be "research" as much as they are clinical reports.

I know the words "scientist" and "research" don't have hard-and-fast definitions, and I certainly don't want to cast aspersions on the applied sciences. Nor do I want this thread to fixate solely on the individual that inspired it. I'm really interested in the more general issue that is in the title of the question: Is it correct to refer to a neurosurgeon with many scholarly publications as a "scientist"?

mweiss
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    Is the neurosurgeon an MD/PhD or just an MD? – Brian Borchers Mar 05 '15 at 04:38
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    In this particular case, Wikipedia lists only an MD. But I am not sure that is a relevant criterion. It seems to me that whether or not one is a scientist depends on what one does professionally, not on the degrees one has or has not earned. – mweiss Mar 05 '15 at 04:43
  • All politics aside, I don't understand why you would deny the title "scientist" to an eminent figure with numerous scholarly publications in the scientific literature. – Corvus Mar 05 '15 at 04:52
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    Because what he does doesn't feel like "research". Honestly, this isn't about the politics. – mweiss Mar 05 '15 at 04:56
  • This I think would be best put in the "English language and usage" SE. If I had sufficient privilege here, I would vote to close this, then migrate it over there. – SE318 Mar 05 '15 at 16:45
  • Remember that a typical PhD knows a whole lot about almost nothing. Just because someone is an expert in their particular field does not mean their opinion on anything outside that field is any good. – user137 Mar 05 '15 at 16:53
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    Is it correct to refer to Bill Murray as a golfer? – brian d foy Mar 05 '15 at 16:59
  • @SE318 I considered "English language and usage" before posting it here. I wonder if the answers would be different over there? – mweiss Mar 05 '15 at 17:00
  • And, maybe just ask Ben Carson what he thinks. – brian d foy Mar 05 '15 at 17:00
  • @briandfoy well, using google's dictionary as a source, a surgeon is a "medical practitioner qualified to practice surgery", and medicine is defined as "the science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of disease(in technical use often taken to exclude surgery)" and scientist is defined as "a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences" so, minimally, non-technically they are a scientist. Technically, one could argue that a neurosurgeon would have to be an expert in neuroscience, making her a scientist by defintion. – SE318 Mar 05 '15 at 17:11
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    I suppose the real question is whether he conducts scientific study. Many medical doctors do engage in scientific experimental work, or provide scientific tests of existing questions. If Ben Carson is using scientific methods in order to answer a scientific question, then I suppose he is a scientist. If, on the other hand, he is publishing interesting case-studies of his work that don't address a larger scientific puzzle, then I don't think he would qualify. The question is thus the content of his published work. – Yasha Mar 05 '15 at 18:03
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    Perhaps if the question isn't about politics, evocative labels such as "right wing" should be left out? – Wayne Mar 05 '15 at 19:26
  • @Wayne Thank you for the suggestion, I will edit accordingly. – mweiss Mar 05 '15 at 19:43

2 Answers2

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At the research company where I work, there are three parallel career tracks: scientist, engineer, and manager. Manager is obviously quite different than the other two, and eventually ends up with the person doing little or no technical work. The only distinction between the scientists and the engineers, however, is determined post hoc by observing what the person tends to do: scientists are the people who tend to publish a lot and lead research projects, and engineers are the people who don't do those things much.

Science is not a tribe, nor is it a credential, nor an award. Science is a behavior: performing investigations that contribute to human knowledge. Any person who does this in a consistent and sustained manner, I would call a scientist, in addition to whatever other labels may be appropriate.

In the case of your example, Ben Carson, a quick Google Scholar search shows he's got a lot of publications, many well-cited (easily 2000+ citations, H-index of around 35). Even without reading any of it to see if his work is ultimately borne out or refuted, it is clear that this is a person who has made a significant intellectual mark on the scientific discussion of their field. This is not surprising: careful and well-presented clinical reports are an important contribution to knowledge! Complementarily, a non-scientifically inclined doctor might simply treat their patients and not write the cases up for publication, merely keeping their private records in accordance with normal medical practice.

In short: definitely a scientist, no matter what else he may or may not be as well.

jakebeal
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    "well-presented clinical reports are an important contribution to knowledge" Indeed, but they're typically authored by clinicians which, ideology aside, seems to be the most appropriate label in this case. – blmoore Mar 05 '15 at 11:55
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    @blmoore Why do you think the term "clinician" is exclusive of the term "scientist"? – jakebeal Mar 05 '15 at 12:43
  • Of course, I don't think that and they're not (my claim was most appropriate). Clearly while any one person could be described hundreds of different ways, some terms can be more appropriate than others without claiming them to be incompatiable. – blmoore Mar 05 '15 at 12:55
  • @blmoore The original question was about whether it's correct to refer to a person as a scientist, thus, that's what I'm answering. I also disagree with you asserting that clinician is more appropriate - I think that it strongly depends on context. Clinician refers to a different aspect of the work, and so in some contexts it will be appropriate and in others not. – jakebeal Mar 05 '15 at 13:15
  • @jakebeal thank you for your response. I think you have helped me hone in on what it is about the word "scientist" that feels slightly off to me: It is the distinction between "careful and well-presented clinical reports" and "performing investigations". To me, the latter has an aspect of intentionality and purposefulness to it that the former does not: i.e., in an "investigation" one has a research question, and one seeks to answer it. In a clinical report, one does something technical and complicated and subsequently writes about it. – mweiss Mar 05 '15 at 14:19
  • Indeed and I'm not answering the original question that's why I made a comment rather than an answer: clinician is a more fitting description than scientist of this person's career (IMO), I guess we can agree to disagree. – blmoore Mar 05 '15 at 14:19
  • Oh, and +1 for "Science is not a tribe, nor is it a credential, nor an award. Science is a behavior...." That was precisely my reaction to the question (asked by @Brian Borchers under the OP) about whether he has an MD/PhD or just an MD. That seems to me the wrong question. – mweiss Mar 05 '15 at 14:43
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    @mweiss: The by far biggest discovery of my wife's PI (stem cell related) came to happen by utter chance: they investigated A, and were stunned to see that in the process, they had shown Omega (just to underline how distant the result was). He struggled with that quite a bit (he wrote about it), until his dad (a math professor himself) told him to stop being silly. Intention really is a poor measuring stick for what research is. This is a good answer, and I hope you manage to look at the case truly w/o political prejudice (I wasn't happy myself about what brought carson to the news recently). – gnometorule Mar 05 '15 at 15:32
  • Oh, I sincerely think my question isn't motivated by political prejudice. I suppose it's possible at an unconscious level, but this really isn't about BC. I am on friendly terms with a local neurosurgeon (who also has many publications) and I am pretty sure I have never heard him referred to as a scientist, or refer to himself that way. – mweiss Mar 05 '15 at 16:22
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    So according to you, an engineer who publishes his engineering in an engineering journal to describe what he engineered is... also a scientist? What about a professor of literature who publishes lots and undoubtedly contributes to the sum total of human knowledge? Also a scientist? Your definition (one who publishes something learned in an investigation) seems a bit broad. Shouldn't the nature of the investigation be a consideration? –  Mar 05 '15 at 18:46
  • @ChrisWhite My language was carefully chosen: "performing investigations that contribute to human knowledge ... in a consistent and sustained manner." An engineer who publishes once may have made a contribution, but has not made a sustained practice. Likewise, an author contributes to the sum of human experience, not to its knowledge (in the scientific, not colloquial sense). A systematic scholar of literature, however, may well be conducting science: consider sociology, which while "softer" than white lab coats and bubbling beakers, is no less a science. – jakebeal Mar 05 '15 at 19:16
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    Methinks that the original question is reflective of an academic culture that has deified "science" and "scientist". Your approach cuts through that: do they have a scientific mindset and use the scientific method on problems with are amenable to such practices. – Wayne Mar 05 '15 at 20:00
  • "Deified?" I don't think my question indicated that I think "scientist" is a superior designation, just that it has a specific meaning and that it seemed to be misapplied. – mweiss Mar 05 '15 at 22:41
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I think there are two question at play in whether or not Mr. Carson can be considered a scientist.

  1. Is the field in which Mr. Carson practiced a science?
  2. Is the work that Mr. Carson performed in this field scientific?

The answer to the first question is not as definitive as some might believe. Even among physicians, some view medicine as more art than science (every patient is different, not all treatments can be universally applied, have to tailor care to the individual, etc, etc). It sounds to me like you believe it falls into the realm of applied science, and since it incorporates the application of several branches of biological science, "applied science" is a logical and fitting tag.

The answer to the second question in my opinion should be handled with care, and not treated as a blanket answer for all medical physicians. So let's just take Mr. Carson's body of work and see if it fits the mold for "scientific." To me, the high level basic test of whether or not a study is scientific is whether or not it uses the scientific method. To remind everyone:

  • Ask a question
  • Do research
  • Form a hypothesis
  • Test the hypothesis with an experiment
  • Analyze the data and form a conclusion
  • Share your results

Just reading his Wikipedia article, the following jumped out at me:

I was talking to a friend of mine, who was a cardiothoracic surgeon, who was the chief of the division, and I said, "You guys operate on the heart in babies, how do you keep them from exsanguinating" and he says, "Well, we put them in hypothermic arrest." I said, "Is there any reason that -- if we were doing a set of Siamese twins that were joined at the head -- that we couldn't put them into hypothermic arrest, at the appropriate time, when we're likely to lose a lot of blood?" and he said, "No." I said, "Wow, this is great." Then I said, "Why am I putting my time into this? I'm not going to see any Siamese twins." So I kind of forgot about it, and lo and behold, two months later, along came these doctors from Germany, presenting this case of Siamese twins. And, I was asked for my opinion, and I then began to explain the techniques that should be used, and how we would incorporate hypothermic arrest, and everybody said "Wow! That sounds like it might work." And, my colleagues and I, a few of us went over to Germany. We looked at the twins. We actually put in scalp expanders, and five months later we brought them over and did the operation, and lo and behold, it worked.

Just from this blurb I can see that he formulates questions for a field of applied science, forms a hypothesis based on known science, and performs his experiments. Based on his published works, I think it's reasonably safe to assume that he analyzes results and shares the findings.

My opinion is that a doctor that does not simply read from a script of "How To Treat" is absolutely a scientist. The body is their Petri dish, so to speak. He shares his results, and I don't see anything about him being a kook, charlatan, or fraud, so I am assuming, given his prominence, that his results have been reproduced by others in the field. The human brain in particular is an area where medical science's understanding is pretty limited, so I think the tag is even more fitting for someone like Mr. Carson whose work didn't have a definitive How-To guide. However, your views may differ based on how you would answer the questions above.

Marc Chiesa
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    So in your opinion mathematicians are not scientists.... – Nick S Mar 05 '15 at 16:56
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    Mathematicians can work in a wide number of fields, many of which are science-based. A blanket statement on mathematicians is not appropriate. You have to look at the field in which they apply their craft and the work that they do. – Marc Chiesa Mar 05 '15 at 17:02
  • Most of the pure mathematicians work in academia. Most prove lots of theorems, publish them but never run a single experiment. Does such a mathematician qualify as a scientist to you or not? – Nick S Mar 05 '15 at 17:05
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    @NickS Mathematicians are not the topic of the question or the answer. Perhaps you might start your own question, or open a chat discussion? Marc defines what a scientist is, the gives us a concrete example of how the person being asked about fits the criteria. My only problem with this answer, is that it is mostly about the specific person, and does not fully incorporate all possible field-specific cases as much as might be possible.. – CGCampbell Mar 05 '15 at 17:16
  • I would not consider the person you describe to be a scientist, but you're welcome to tell my why that would be a mistake. – Marc Chiesa Mar 05 '15 at 17:19
  • @MarcChiesa Because mathematicians ask questions,do a lot of research on them. These problems become hypothesis, and we "test" them by looking proofs proofs and counterexamples. But instead of running experiments, we find proofs, and once we find the proof we draw the conclusion. And we definitely share the results. – Nick S Mar 05 '15 at 17:24
  • @CGCampbell The issue is that that is the wikipedia definition of a scientist, but Wikipedia is also full of mistakes. By asking this question, I am challenging this definition, and by my understanding this is "scientific"...Mathematicians do exactly what all scientists do, seek new knowledge. The only difference is they they use a different way of testing the hypothesis (proof vs actual experiment).. But the methodology is the same: the seek evidence (on paper instead of in a lab) to sustain their hypothesis. Most funding agencies and universities do consider math as part of the science... – Nick S Mar 05 '15 at 17:35
  • @CGCampbell This is true, and regretfully I agree that my answer is lacking with respect to the more general question. I found it difficult to apply my answer it to the broader field of neurosurgeons because I don't know generally how much they publish or go off-script for experimental treatments. My sense is that most don't, but I don't want to shortchange the individuals that do. If you have any specific suggestions for improving this answer, I would gladly take them. – Marc Chiesa Mar 05 '15 at 17:37
  • @NickS I welcome your opposing view. I personally don't see mathematics as a subset of science, but rather a different field with a significant intersection. Perhaps we can agree to disagree. – Marc Chiesa Mar 05 '15 at 17:54
  • I agree with @MarcChiesa 's original post. We can probably differentiate several definitions of 'science'; for example, science can be a field of study and practice (biology, sociology, physics), and science can be a method of inquiry (the scientific method). There are plenty of Biologists who don't regularly practice science, and there are some people who engage in the scientific method outside of the traditional fields of science. For me, the question of whether an individual is "a scientist" falls to whether they actively engage in scientific inquiry. – Yasha Mar 05 '15 at 18:09
  • @Jacob But you see, and this is my point, when you differentiate between several definitions of science, you also change the meaning of "scientist"... – Nick S Mar 05 '15 at 18:20
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    @NickS I've never met a mathematician who considered math to be science. They are fundamentally different endeavors. For some reason people have latched onto the idea that "worthiness of being researched" is equivalent to "scientific" and then they distort the meaning of science to include everything they consider worthy of research. The fact is, there is plenty of legitimate research that is not science. –  Mar 05 '15 at 18:50
  • @NickS I think it is fair for a word to have multiple definitions. The definitions I used have been generally well accepted for some time (long before Wikipedia). If you want to change the perception of the word scientist, surely there are better platforms than the StackExchange comment system. I get that you take umbrage with mathematicians being excluded from the general label of "scientist" under these definitions, I guess I don't understand why it's such a big deal. It certainly isn't intended as a slight. I mean scientists, mathematicians... they're all just a bunch of nerds anyway ;) – Marc Chiesa Mar 05 '15 at 19:02
  • @ChrisWhite Well I am a mathematician, and I consider it science. Gauss, a name even many non-mathematicians are familiar with, called mathematics "the Queen of the Sciences". Actually most mathematicians I know think of mathematics as being a precise science.... – Nick S Mar 05 '15 at 19:23
  • @ChrisWhite Hi there. I am a mathematician, and I consider mathematics to be a science. – JeffE Mar 05 '15 at 20:28
  • It sounds like whether you would consider mathematicians as scientists depends on whether you consider doing a proof as Test the Hypothesis with an Experiment. I personally do consider proofs to be a test of a Hypothesis (but maybe not an "experiment") - my own view is that I would prefer to call a mathematician a mathematician rather than a scientist because it is more specific and no less meaningful. That doesn't necessarily mean you aren't one, just that it isn't as important of a definition Also, you can be "Ruler of [Object]" without being that object. You could say I am King of my house. – DoubleDouble Mar 05 '15 at 20:28
  • @NickS: Actually, Gauss said "Die Mathematik ist die Königin der Wissenschaften," and although Wissenschaft is often (mis)translated into English as science, it really refers to any scholarly study. For example, a long paper written for a history class may be referred to as a wissenschaftliche Arbeit. – Mark Meckes May 22 '15 at 07:29