Yes, science is a tool/process: it's "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." Beyond the actual research and work, science--and the empiricism that defines it and the scientific method--is the embodiment of a very firm epistemological position. In a sense, when people talk about "science" in general terms, they're talking about a way of looking at the world. It's not just about what sort of collected knowledge you have available. It's about how that knowledge is collected and verified, and how it can shape one's perception of new information.

There are precursors to the scientific method than can be traced back millennia. While over 2600 years separate us from when the Edwin Smith Papyrus[0] was written (c. 1600 BCE), the rationalism present in most of the text, its case study approach, and an emphasis on observation and diagnosis are all things that any doctor today would clearly recognize despite the very obvious differences in medical knowledge between then and now. Or consider the Empirics of the 3rd century BCE and their approach to medicine versus the Dogmatic school. Babylonian astronomers in the 8th century BCE developed a systematic approach that would later inform classic Greek and Hellenistic astronomers (and likely philosophers in general), even though the Greeks would develop an unhealthy obsession with cosmology and spheres that...led them astray a bit. In On the Parts of Animals: Book III, Aristotle stated that "Males have more teeth than females in the case of men, sheep, goats, and swine; in the case of other animals observations have not yet been made." While his observations were dead wrong, and have been mocked for years, his point about further observation is important. Thinkers from Bertrand Russel to B. F. Skinner have misinterpreted Aristotle's approach: despite his erroneous conclusions, the fact that they were due to incorrect data/observations rather than flawed logic is important.

That said, empiricism in this vain didn't have nearly as much of an effect on cultures as did traditional beliefs, cosmology, ontology, theology, etc. With the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution, everything changed: empiricism and rationalism (despite the disputes between the two), came to shape European intelligentsia. Cue Francis Bacon's Novum Organum and deliberate experimentation. Taken together, it changed the direction of western civilization.

Anyhow, my belabored point is this: "science" is intrinsically tied to a fundamental change in human thought that helped shape how even non-scientists think about and interact with the world around them. When people talk about the need for scientific understanding in politics, they aren't saying that those they disagree with politically are stupid. Or that their voices are of less worth. Rather, they're looking at what's becoming a rejection--in whole or part--of a scientific mindset in favor of one that can be immensely dangerous. In the public discourse, the debate over climate change is largely being waged over dogmatic and ideological terms, rather than as a scientific debate over the data itself. Anti-vaxers, anti-GMO activists, etc. all pursue lines of argument where empirical data is not only not used, but in many cases, is categorically rejected. By allowing ideology to shade or even shape perception, such individuals--and those who implement policies on the basis of their arguments--are creating an environment where enlightenment ideas and the scientific method are able to be marginalized.

That doesn't make those individuals "stupid." It makes them human, and it's natural to prioritize beliefs and values differently from one another. But one of the greatest legacies of the scientific revolution is the ability to, as William Whewell described it, was a "transition from an implicit trust in the internal powers of man's mind to a professed dependence upon external observation; and from an unbounded reverence for the wisdom of the past, to a fervid expectation of change and improvement."[1] To step back from that legacy is to limit our ability to apply scientific knowledge in how all of us develop those beliefs and values. Is all shouting about "SCIENCE" enlightened? Of course not. But that's often the case regardless of the subject at hand.

One of my biggest fears about the March for Science is that it will make it even easier for people to cherrypick scientific data to support their beliefs by rejecting scientists as yet another political grouping. Instead of being a separate, apolitical force, "science" becomes nothing more than another political grouping. And that would be disastrous.

0. https://ceb.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/smith/smith.html

1. https://archive.org/stream/philosophyinduc04whewgoog#page/n3...