A lot of arguments about what science is and does can be boiled down to the fact that “science” means three different things and people tend to conflate them:
1. A series of techniques
2. A community
3. An information organization structure in conversation with power

These three meanings of “science” have formed an ecosystem in a professional and political context, feeding into each other and producing each other in specific ways.

(Credit for this point about the triad of definitions goes to Jonathan Marks in _why I am not a scientist_)

Science and society co-construct which means that how definition 1, 2, and 3 operate depends on what science and society are each doing at any given moment. It’s a feedback loop.