Is GIS a science?

In the Fall semester of 2023, I have taken GEOG 361 Open Source GIS with Professor Joe Holler. We had our course started by discussing a debating topic “Is GIS Science?”

Here are the prompts that I used to reflect on the topic of “Is GIS a science?”

• What is science and how does a lack of reproducibility impact scientific knowledge production? Do you have any prior experience or knowledge of irreproducibility or questionable research practices in science?
• Which category of “GIS as Science” most applies to your personal experience thus far using and studying GIS? Do those forms of GIS count as “science”?
• Which themes of GIS Discourse have attracted you to the technology or made you feel uneasy about it? Have your instructors or mentors made any arguments similar to the four themes, or have you made them yourself in conversations with friends and family?

Reproducibility of Science

I think the reading of NASEM gives us a clear definition of what is science and what is science trying to do. Based on my personal understanding, science tries to discover and find the underlying mechanisms of the phenomenon in the world with prudent attitudes and rigorous approaches. Science emphasizes the importance of accuracy and universality, and therefore reproducibility of any finding that is considered scientific should be available. A lack of reproducibility means that the scientific knowledge is not convincing enough. I think of it as a novel electric appliance with unclear user instructions: people cannot use it or comment about their user experience. I think I had previous working experience where the person who continued my work was not clear about how I calculated the data from the original dataset. I did not make clear instructions about the calculation process so I had to explain my thinking process to him for clarification. Meanwhile, I have seen people who do documentation really well, making the ones who continue their work feel clear-minded about the previous work and easy to move on.

Categories of “GIS as Science”

Among the three positions of GIS as science, my personal experience thus far using and studying GIS mostly falls within the category of “GIS as a scientific tool”. For example, in Intro to GIS classes, we learned how to use this tool and apply it to topics in human geography such as social justice and physical geography such as vegetational cover change. I use GIS as a method to help me understand spatial phenomena. Meanwhile, I think I was also using GIS as a science, where I conceptualized how to collect, use, and analyze geospatial data. For example, in remote sensing, we learned how to use different combinations of band to analyze the data, and how to use machine learning to classify the land cover based on the remote sensing data we have collected. I think regardless of using GIS as a tool of science or studying it as a science subject, GIS counts as science because it is used in a rigorous manner.

Personal Encounters of GIS Discourse

I think the universally applicable nature of GIS in the GIS Discourse is what attracted me at first to the technology. People from all disciplines see an increasing need to understand the factor of “place” (why is it happening here?) in all issues. The applicability of GIS across disciplines and its wide use is also what is stressed during my GIS education, especially when I realized taking GIS courses allows me to apply to more jobs that are not limited to geography. When learning about new tools in GIS, I started to reflect on in which scenario could this tool be applied to. I have friends that are not geography majors but are willing to take GIS courses. One of my friends majoring in economics asked me about self-learning GIS because during interviews he was asked whether he mastered GIS or not. GIS skill is considered a bonus in the job market.

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table column 1	table column 2
centered	not centered
more content to show centering	not so much

	Reject	Accept
Not True	no error	type I
True	type II	no error