Talk:Scientist

Scientist Vs Engineers is an inappropriate section

Scientists Vs Engineers is an inappropriate section. There are a lot of scientists who invented a lot of things and engineers who didn't invent anything. A scientist works for general solutions (by discoveries,inventions,finding methods of problem solving etc) and an engineer works for particular solutions(design things for particular situation,maintenance etc). This section has citations that says nothing about scientists. This section says "When a scientist has also an engineering education, the same individual would explore principles in nature to solve problems and to design new technology". Is it true? A person do not need engineering education to invent things. A person only need a good brain and sufficient knowledge to invent things. In most of the cases "Scientist" is a bestowed title rather than a job. They may be industrial scientists,professors,engineers,doctors etc. So we can find a lot of engineers those are considered as scientists. This article says only about theoretical scientists.This article says nothing about applied scientists.

Incorrect definition

The first sentence of the article states "A scientist is a person who researches to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences". Scientists, however, are present in all branches of science, not just the natural sciences, and neither of the two citations seems to claim otherwise. Also the first source seems somewhat out of place, since it is mainly about a debate about ant societies and only tangentially about the definition of the word "scientist". 88.65.74.152 (talk) 19:08, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree. Gabriel A. Álvarez N. (talk) 14:00, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

That's correct. Sociologists, political scientists and economists are all scientists. They don't study the natural sciences, but the social sciences. Yet they are all universally considered scientists. 2804:14D:5CD3:97BE:B94B:4BEE:9782:DE5D (talk) 17:51, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Unbelievable: someone attempted to jerryrig some OR by first citing the Cambridge Dictionary entry for scientist,

which says

an expert who studies or works in one of the sciences:

• research scientist
• nuclear scientist
• forensic scientist
• social scientist

but then cite the definitions for science, of which the first entry says

(knowledge from) the careful study of the structure and behavior of the physical world, especially by watching, measuring, and doing experiments, and the development of theories to describe the results of these activities:

but also gives in a later entry that it can mean

a particular subject that is studied using scientific methods:

• physical sciences
• Economics is not an exact science.
• advances in medical science

I guess what happened is the editor really preferred if the word referred only to a practitioner of the natural sciences, something at odds not only with the material in the article body and the cited sources when they are actually read—but even if those latter entries were not present for science, OR usually entails mashing together sources for conclusions that none themselves say, but the OR done here directly contradicts what conclusions the most relevant cited source clearly itself makes.

The other removed source is clearly some sort of opinion piece not about science in a broad sense, and I have no idea why it's being treated as reliable for the broadest claims in the philosophy of science. Remsense 🌈 论 16:30, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

What's the point have "natural science" in the the body if that's not what makes a scientist a scientist or it's not in the lead sentence. What is its relevance? It should be removed if that's the case. Mechanical Keyboarder (talk) 18:46, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Huh? Science as we know it emerged in large part from the disciplines of natural philosophy as they grew increasingly distinct during the early modern era from the other disciplines previously included under the umbrella of "philosophy".

For a temporary period after this conceptual split, the fields of inquiry from which the social sciences emerged during the 19th and 20th centuries were also considered subfields of philosophy—owing in part to the distinction made originally by the ancient Greeks that they were inquiries into humans and their creations, as opposed to the natural world. They were at that time expressly reconceptualized as sciences that would also employ the scientific method already established in the natural sciences.

These are key facts about the history of science and of the coordinate terms like scientist. To relate this history is why the sentence in question was included. Remsense 🌈 论 06:48, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

I am not referring to natural philosophy. I am referring to natural science. If a person simply researches an area of interests makes them a scientist, then why expand on that with natural science? Mechanical Keyboarder (talk) 07:06, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Because historically the natural sciences are one distinct category to emerge as such and the social sciences are another that did so later. The section is summarizing the history of how the modern concept of science matured over time, and came to encompass the diverse disciplines considered to be sciences today. This is relevant because people studying society begin to call themselves scientists when they begin to call sociology a science. Remsense 🌈 论 20:05, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

There is a big focus on history of scientists. Dragonfire1399 (talk) 02:39, 15 February 2026 (UTC)