Holden Thorp, the editor-in-chief of the prestigious journal Science, described on Substack a discussion that occurred during the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In the closing plenary session, he posed to a “panel of scientific leaders” the question, “Who is a scientist?” The answers “ranged from very narrow (just people who are doing or planning research) all the way to very broad (every living human).”

Then Thorp offered his opinion: